Bulawayo by-laws and fines index

Version 1.0, 7 October 2026. Published by Bulawayo Commons (bulawayocommons.org).

What this is

A small, plain index of the by-laws Bulawayo City Council says it has, which of them you can actually read online, and what the council fines people for. Everything in these files was read from a council document or a gazetted instrument, and every row carries the link it came from. Where the council's own records disagree with each other, or a number is mistyped on the council's list, we say so in the notes column rather than guess. This is research material for residents, journalists and civic groups, not legal advice.

The files

• by-laws.csv (55 rows). One row for each of the 33 entries on the council's own "List of By-Laws" PDF, plus one row for each further document posted on the council's by-laws page (mostly one-page amendments, two recent principal by-laws and two drafts), plus the four proposed by-laws on the council's drafts page. Columns: id, title, year, statutory_instrument, status, subject, text_available_online, council_file_url, notes, source, verified_on.
  • status is one of in_force_listed (the council lists it as current), amendment (an amending instrument), proposed_draft (posted as proposed, not confirmed gazetted) or repealed (the posted text of a later instrument says it was repealed). The last value was added because two clamping by-laws were plainly repealed by later gazetted instruments.
  • statutory_instrument is written as "SI 525 of 1979" where the council list prints an unambiguous "525/79". Where the printing is odd or truncated we keep it exactly as printed and explain in notes. Several older instruments are Rhodesia Government Notices rather than SIs; the posted copy's heading is given in notes.
  • source is the council document the row came from: the list PDF, the by-laws index page, or the drafts page.
• fines.csv (124 rows). Every offence on the council's Health Services Department "Amended Deposit Fines Schedule" (96 rows, ids df-*), every offence and penalty in the City of Bulawayo (Hawkers and Vendors) By-laws, 2022 (26 rows, ids hv-*), and two provisions of the Urban Councils Act that shape all council fines (ids na-*). Columns: id, offence, instrument, fine_level, usd_on_2023_scale, enforcement_body, notes, source_url, verified_on. fine_level is the standard scale level as printed in the source; usd_on_2023_scale converts it using SI 14A of 2023 (level 1 US$5, level 2 US$15, level 3 US$30, level 4 US$100, level 5 US$200).
• standard-scale-2023.csv (14 rows). The full standard scale of fines, levels 1 to 14, as read from Statutory Instrument 14A of 2023.

All files are UTF-8, comma separated, LF line endings, with quoted fields where needed.

Sources

Council documents (all fetched on 7 October 2026; the index page and the deposit fines schedule were byte-identical to copies fetched on 5 October 2026):

• Bulawayo City Council by-laws index page: https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/ByLaws
• Council "List of By-Laws" PDF (2 pages, 33 items, undated): https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/GetByLaw?fileShortName=list_by-laws.pdf
• Council draft by-laws page: https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/DraftByLaws
• Individual by-law PDFs, each linked in council_file_url, served from https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/GetByLaw?fileShortName=... and https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/GetDraftByLaw?fileShortName=...
• Health Services Department, Amended Deposit Fines Schedule (6 pages, undated): https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/GetPublication?fileShortName=DEPOSIT_FINES_SCHEDULE.pdf
• SI 231 of 2006 (Clamping and Tow Away By-laws, 2006) and SI 218 of 2003 (fixed penalties regulations), posted on the council Publications page: https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/GetPublication?fileShortName=statutory-instrument-231-of-2006.pdf and https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/GetPublication?fileShortName=statutory-instrument-218-of-2003.pdf
• Chairperson's 2025 Budget Speech (27 September 2024), Annexure A "Legislation guiding City of Bulawayo", used only for the "listed as current" notes: https://www.citybyo.co.zw/Downloads/GetPublication?fileShortName=Chairman%27s_Budget_Speech_FULL27-09-24.pdf

National instruments:

• Statutory Instrument 14A of 2023, Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) (Standard Scale of Fines) Notice, 2023, gazetted 22 February 2023: https://www.law.co.zw/download/statutory-instrument-14a-of-2023/
• Statutory Instrument 19 of 2023, correction of errors to SI 14A (makes the US dollar amounts "maybe payable" in local currency at the interbank rate): https://www.law.co.zw/download/statutory-instrument-19-of-2023/
• Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15], copy consolidated to Act 1 of 2008: https://www.law.co.zw/download/urban-councils-act-chapter-2915/

Known gaps

• The Anti-Litter By-laws 1981 are on the council's list, but no text is posted anywhere we could find, and the council list truncates the SI number ("SI 872/8."). The council's deposit fines schedule does not charge anything under them; littering is charged under section 30 of the Public Health By-laws 1966.
• The deposit fines schedule is undated. It still cites the 1977 hawkers by-laws rather than the 2017, 2020 or 2022 ones, so it predates 2020, and we do not know when it was last amended or whether the council still uses it in this form.
• The US dollar amounts use SI 14A of 2023. We found no later Standard Scale of Fines notice, but our search was limited (Veritas and ZimLII could not be reached), so the scale may have changed since 2023. Treat the dollar column as "on the 2023 scale", not as today's price.
• The two 2023 drafts most relevant to litter, the Solid Waste Management By-laws and the Environmental Management By-laws, were still labelled proposed on 7 October 2026 and we found no gazette notice for either. Their penalties are therefore not in fines.csv. The same applies to the proposed Fire Brigade and Water and Sewerage Drainage by-laws of 2023.
• The posted copies of the Public Health By-laws 1966 and Refuse Removal By-laws 1979 are retyped, not gazette scans, and neither has a penalty section. We could not check whether the gazetted originals did.
• The 2017 Hawkers by-laws, the 2022 Hawkers and Vendors by-laws and the 2022 Advertising by-laws carry no SI number on the posted copies, so we cannot confirm from them that they were gazetted. The 2022 Hawkers and Vendors by-laws do repeal SI 181 of 2020 by name.
• The Advertising By-laws 2022 and the Clamping and Tow-away By-laws 2023 have their own penalty schedules; they are not in fines.csv in this version.
• The copy of the Urban Councils Act we read is consolidated only to 2008. Later amendments were not checked.
• 22 of the 55 listed by-laws have no text online at all, including the Noise By-laws 1975, the Registration of Premises by-laws and the principal Roads and Traffic By-laws 1978.
• The council's list has typing errors we could not resolve (for example "8276" among the Public Health amendments, and "SI 1144/79" for a 1971 by-law whose posted amendment cites RGN 144 of 1971). These are kept as printed and flagged in notes.

Licence

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, share and adapt these files for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you credit Bulawayo Commons and note any changes. The underlying by-laws and statutory instruments are public documents of the City of Bulawayo and the Government of Zimbabwe.

How to cite

Bulawayo Commons, Bulawayo by-laws and fines index, version 1.0, 7 October 2026.

Changelog

• 1.0 (7 October 2026): first release; 55 by-law rows, 124 fine rows, 14 scale rows.