All eight councillors for Luchenza Municipality have not been paid their honoraria and fuel allowance for four months due to what council authorities’ describe as under-collection of revenue.
Deputy Mayor of Luchenza Municipality Council, Lawrence Moleni, and other two councillors Blessings Sawasawa for Lolo Ward; and Genesis William for Kampiri Ward confirmed the development.
“We were told by the chairperson of the finance committee [ Patrick Chiromo] that the municipality has no funds to pay our honoraria and fuel allowances which we are obliged to have as per the local government statute,” said William.
Both William and Sawasawa disclosed that since the arrival of the new Chief Executive Officer for the municipality, Andrew Misomali, councillors have not been paid their honoraria.
Beyond that, the councillors allege that all services committees of the municipality stopped functioning due to lack of funds.
Commenting on the matter, Misomali said the councillors are to blame for the current scenario since they decided to shrink their revenue collection base.
“In their own meetings, the councillors agreed that the council should stop collecting ground rates for all the buildings in the municipality. That decision has negatively affected us in the sense that we are unable to raise funds for such payments,” he said.
He added that government allocation to the municipality council per month is K480,000 which is insufficient for the smooth operations of the council.
Misomali said if the councillors want to have their pay they should reverse the decision prohibiting revenue collectors from collecting ground rates.
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