Durban - Government departments have to make plans to pay eThekwini Municipality for services or be disconnected.
That is the directive contained in the recommendations discussed in part to pass the city’s budget for the 2022/2023 financial year.
The directive recommended that government departments be told to pay up or make plans to pay and if they fail to, they must be disconnected. It called for “state-owned entities and government departments that have long-outstanding debt” to be sent disconnection letters and allowed seven days to make arrangements to pay.
“If there are no arrangements, utilities must be disconnected,” stated the document.
The city passed its budget for the 2022/2023 financial year last week.
The government departments and state entities alone owe the municipality about R1 billion for rates and services. The municipality is owed in total about R17bn for rates and services by consumers.
Among those that owe the municipality is the Ingonyama Trust Board. It was revealed earlier this year that the trust owed more than R200 million for rates on its land.
City officials were scheduled to meet with Ingonyama officials to discuss the matter and another matter in which the city is proposing charging a flat rate for services for the residents that live on Ingonyama land.
Opposition party councillors in the municipality have consistently urged the council to aggressively go after those that owed the city money, especially government departments. They were concerned that the municipality was borrowing money instead of collecting what is owed to it.
DA councillor Nicole Graham said this was a conversation that has been going on for far too long with very little action. “We are owed, I think the last count was R17bn of debt, and there does not seem to be any political will to resolve the situation.
“The proof is in the pudding; when we disconnect people and when we implement measures to force people to pay, they pay. And when you don’t do that people don’t pay. There is no use in talking about it if you are not going do it. We have seen DA municipalities across the country put their foot down on defaulters who have the capacity to pay and eThekwini must stop talking about it and do it,” she said.
Busi Radebe of ActionSA said the party had raised concerns about the high level of government debt amounting to R1bn months ago.
“The municipality at this stage should be in a position where it has engaged all the relevant departments and either disconnected or reached settlement agreements,” she said.
“A warning is insufficient at a time where we are facing a disaster and the city needs all the funds due to it for services rendered in order to continue to serve the people of eThekwini.”
The provincial government has previously raised concerns about how municipalities in general charged rates on government property, claiming that municipalities are charging for things like a soccer field or a clinic.
It said charging rates on such properties was unjust as these properties are there to assist the residents of those municipalities.