Durban - eThekwini Municipality has been confronted by a growing number of residents angered by the new tariff increases who are now threatening to withhold millions of rand in payments to the City.
The new financial year, which comes with the implementation of the new tariffs which the residents have described as unaffordable and not justifiable, started on July 1.
Seven more ratepayer organisations have joined the action first launched by the Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA), which has declared a dispute against the municipality over the increases.
Asad Gaffar of the WRA said ratepayer associations from Overport, Musgrave, Sydenham, Asherville, New Germany, oThongathi Civic Association and North Beach have joined the WRA dispute.
The Mercury reported yesterday that the WRA had declared a dispute against the municipality on account that the City had not given them a fair hearing before imposing the new tariffs.
It vowed to withhold funds meant for rates or services and instead pay the amounts into a trust account until the dispute with the municipality is resolved.
The other associations said it was important to join this action as they felt the municipality was failing to deliver services and as such the tariffs being charged cannot be justified.
“We are going to be doing exactly what the WRA is going to be doing,” said Kader Mahmood of the Asherville Ratepayers’ Association, adding that WRA had put the necessary infrastructure in place and as such it was easy to join that action because lodging a new dispute would duplicate the work and bring in more costs.
“We will tell our members to withhold the payment and pay them over to the trust account until the municipality sorts out the situation,” he said.
“Many have been concerned that if they do not pay, the City will cut their services, but if a dispute has been declared and the ratepayers are able to point out that the money is being paid, but to a trust account, the City cannot cut the services.”
Don Perumall, of the oThongathi Civic Association, said they would be joining the action by WRA, adding that they believe that the withholding of payments was the right step.
“They have increased the tariffs, but they are still giving us poor service and the ratepayers are not going to take that any more,” said Perumall, adding that while their infrastructure had been devastated by floods, no serious action has been taken to repair it.
Carl Lortan of the Sydenham Ratepayers’ Association said the municipality needs to be challenged as it was charging high tariffs for very poor services.
“Out of all the big cities, we are paying the most in tariffs. If we were getting the best service delivery we would say fine, go ahead but we are getting the worst.”
City councillor Patrick Pillay, of the Democratic Liberal Congress (DLC), urged the municipality to move quickly to address the impending rates boycott.
“Whilst the DLC supports the dispute of the ratepayers, it wants to caution them to be careful and not go into arrears with their accounts as this would provide the City with reasons to take action against them through the courts or have their services terminated in terms of the credit control policy,” he said.
Mayoral spokesperson Mluleki Mntungwa said the City had responded comprehensively on the issue of tariffs on Monday and that statement stood.
The City’s head of communication, Lindiwe Khuzwayo, had said the City had listened to its ratepayers during the budget hearings in terms of the difficulties they were experiencing in these tough economic times.
“Accordingly, we went back to the drawing board and reviewed all expenditure items. We cut and re-prioritised expenditure, where possible, to reduce the tariff increases.
“There were several meetings between the political and administrative leadership to reduce the tariff increases to the lowest possible levels,” she said.