By XAVIER MANCHISHI –

THE Lusaka City Council (LCC) is owed over K183 million by different institutions and individuals, assistant public relations manager Brenda Katongola has disclosed.

The council has since warned of legal action against the defaulters.

According to the debtors list of January 16, 2014, the council is owed K84,006,656.00 in ground rates, K73,413,565.00 in rates, K13,108,934.51 in commercial properties and K12,944,224.47 in Billboards advertising bringing the total amount to K183,473,388.98.

Ms Katongola said the council has since appealed to defaulters to honour their obligations and is giving an incentive of 25 per cent discount on those who clear their ground rent balances.

“Paying rates is a requirement by law. We are encouraging people to honour their obligations and pay what they owe the council so that we can be able to offer quality service delivery to the community and also to enable us meet our operational costs,” she said in a statement.

The LCC has sent a final warning to defaulters encouraging them to clear their outstanding debts for the civic organisation to provide quality service delivery.

“Right now we are running a promotion where we are giving a 25 per cent discount on ground rates to encourage people to clear their balances. We will soon commence legal action against billboard debtors and other defaulters.”

She said bailiffs representing LCC are currently on the ground helping with revenue collection, especially with people who have failed to honour their obligations even after reminders were sent out.

Ms Katongola said LCC is faced with challenges in providing quality service to the community like garbage collection, working on drainages, putting up police posts and roads among other areas of service delivery.

Meanwhile, the LCC has acquired two compactor trucks and 112 rel skip bins and 20 closed roll-on bins at a cost of K4.999 million to ease problems of garbage collection in the city.

“We have been having challenges providing quality service in garbage collection, but this will soon be a thing of the past because the council has acquired two compactor trucks to ease the problem of garbage collection.

“We are facing challenges in this area also due to the same reason of people not paying revenue to the council,” she said.