There is slight relief for cash-strapped Johannesburg residents.
The city has agreed to the waiving of penalty interest charges on defaulting municipal accounts between April and June, with the relaxation of credit control measures during the lockdown period, meaning there is a temporary hold-off on the cutting of services.
The relief is set to be automatically activated for residential properties. However, multipurpose residential, as well as business properties need to apply to qualify for the additional rates relief.
Member of the mayoral committee for finance, Jolidee Matongo, said the city had also extended the expanded social package (ESP) benefits period for existing beneficiaries to reduce the number of residents needing to visit customer centres to renew their benefit period during the lockdown.
This meant there was no need for ESP beneficiaries and residential property owners to visit the city’s customer centres to apply or qualify for the additional rates relief as this would be automatically applied on their records and accounts, respectively.
However, staff salaries would remain at a 4% increase.
“We could not interfere with this because it is a discussion for labour unions and South African Local Government Association,” Matongo said.
The Joburg city manager has since sent a message to staff on salary increases that will assist with keeping labour stability in the municipality during the Covid-19 lockdown period and beyond.
“We are already operating at limited capacity to ensure service delivery continues. The city and its residents cannot afford to have labour action that will interrupt service delivery during the lockdown,” he added,
The credit relief measures, said Matongo, were putting more than R400million back into the pockets of the city’s property owners.
The additional relief measures for ratepayers in distress come after the city granted a reduction in proposed tariffs two weeks ago.
The recent relief measures were endorsed by all political parties represent in council, with some requests that staff capacity be beefed up in the city’s customer centres to help residents with relief applications.
Matongo said the finance department had welcomed the comments and input from the councillors and that efforts were already under way, including the introduction of region-based email addresses.
“However, we do appeal to ratepayers to continue paying for services to keep their accounts up to date, and those in financial distress to approach the city to enter into payment arrangements to avoid future penalties.”
He added the city had also considered business property owners in the additional relief by reducing the business rate ratio from 1:2.6 to 1:2.3.
The MMC called on residents to continue adhering to Covid-19 safety guidelines and where possible to avoid visiting the customer centres.