DURBAN - OPPOSITION parties in the eThekwini Municipality want the metro to be more aggressive in collecting money owed to it by government departments, parastatals and big businesses.
The latest report on municipal debt showed the council is owed more than R17 billion. The debt has been on an upward trajectory for the past few years.
To date, government debt is standing at around R1bn.
While other municipalities, such as the City of Tshwane, have recently shown aggressive tactics in going after government and private businesses, eThekwini was non-committal on such actions only saying it was collecting from owing customers and disconnections were taking place.
The DA-led City of Tshwane caused a stir last week when it embarked on a campaign to disconnect water and electricity to state departments, state-owned entities and private businesses that owed it millions of rand.
While eThekwini Municipality enforces its credit control policy via disconnections on mainly household consumers who are owing, it has not shown such an appetite when it comes to government debt, opposition parties said.
DA councillor Nicole Graham said eThekwini should pursue the big debtors aggressively and show these customers that there were consequences for not paying municipal debt.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi agreed that the city should be aggressive in disconnections at government departments as it was when cutting services to ordinary ratepayers.
The report shows that the total outstanding debt of R17.6bn represents an increase of R2.9bn compared with December 2020. “The total debt of R17.6bn includes R3.4bn which represents collection challenges, which will take a longer period to recover,” said the report.
Graham said: “We are not disconnecting our big debtors; until you start indicating to people that you will disconnect them and that there are consequence for not paying your municipal bill people will not pay.” While the disconnections in Tshwane became a public spectacle, it changed public perception, she said.
Nkosi said: “If the municipality were to get aggressive and collect what is owed, they would not need to go to lending institutions to borrow money.
“They have no problems cutting residents off, what reasons do they have not to disconnect government departments?”
Sabelo Gwala, of the SA Local Government Association in KZN, said while the government debt was not at an alarming level, it was increasing and that is something that they have engaged the premier’s office on. He said government debt in KZN was R1.7bn and R1.1bn of that was in eThekwini, which showed that there was a large cheque that the municipality should collect.
However, he said, the metro had a very high collection rate at around 80% and therefore it was not surprising that the municipality was not employing aggressive collection measures.
EThekwini Municipality spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said the city was currently disconnecting all customers who were in arrears.
THE MERCURY