Durban - Msunduzi Municipality will conduct an audit on its councillors as it seeks to determine whether all of them are paying for municipal services.
The move was agreed to in principle at an Executive Committee meeting last Thursday, where questions were raised about customers not paying for services.
The proposal is set for presentation to a full council sitting this week, but the Msunduzi Association of Residents, Ratepayers and Civics (MARRC) has already expressed pessimism about the audit yielding any results.
The move comes after the revenue-enhancement committee last week determined that speaker Eunice Majola should intervene to ensure that councillors paid for their services to ensure that the municipality remained financially viable.
The move forms part of the City’s broader revenue-enhancement drive, which has seen it collecting millions of rand, but also encountering challenges. This includes an incident where council staff were chased away from the wards in which they were conducting meter readings.
Msunduzi chief financial officer Nelly Ngcobo is set to present the audit findings to the speaker who will determine action against the identified councillors. City manager Lulamile Mapholoba said it was important for councillors to set a good example.
Deputy mayor Mxolisi Mkhize said it was of concern that the City was not generating revenue from the bulk electricity and water it was buying from Umgeni Water and Eskom and called for firm action to be taken. “People need to know that nothing is free, someone pays for it, therefore people should pay for municipal services.”
DA councillor Ross Strachan said: “Let my house be the first for such an inspection” in expressing support for the audit. MARRC’s Anthony Waldhausen said: “The audit illustrates that they suspect some councillors are not paying for services yet they expect us to pay.” He added that if councillors were found not to be paying for services, they should face tough sanction.