BT residents owe city council K2bn

Businesses and property owners in Blantyre City are frustrating and compromising the council’s tasks as they owe Blantyre City Council (BCC) over K2 billion accumulated over the past five years.

Malawi News Agency (Mana) established this on Tuesday in an interview with BCC public relations manager Anthony Kasunda.
He said the K2 billion comprises unpaid city rates, rents and ground and market fee revenues.
Said Kasunda: “If remitted timely, the money could have facilitated the council’s effective delivery of services such as rubbish disposal management, building, rehabilitating roads and public infrastructure, installing and maintenance of street lights among other crucial tasks in the city.”
He also said failure to remit such revenues results in piles of rubbish being heaped around the households, along streets and market areas without being collected on regular basis by the council’s rubbish collection vans as funds are locked with the people.
Kasunda said the council plans to engage an extra gear to collect the money through, among others, locking up or closing of those houses with arrears, to force compliance.