The City of Ekurhuleni was on March 16 rocked by a string of mass protests, with the metro deploying its EMPD crews to monitor the situation and quell any form of disturbances at its facilities.
The march saw groups of community members, led by the ANC Caucus in Ekurhuleni, descending on the metro’s offices in different towns, including the municipal customer care centres in Benoni, Vosloorus, Katlehong, Thokoza, Kwa-Thema and many others.
The marching crowds delivered memorandums of demands to the metro, demanding a 75% debt write-off of all municipal accounts for households in the City, particularly the previous term’s debts, said to be billions of rands.
The metro said regardless of the marches, all the walk-in centres, or customer care centres (CCCs), remained fully operational and has not disrupted services at all.
“The City of Ekurhuleni is on high alert following incidents of the sporadic protest in various parts of the City. The EMPD is monitoring the situation closely,” said metro spokesperson Zweli Dlamini on March 16.
Relief for the financially distressed
ANC Chief Whip in the City Jongizizwe Dlabathi confirmed the peaceful marchers were led by the ANC Caucus in Ekurhuleni to demand the City considers writing off all financially distressed residents’ old debts, particularly debts that remained unsettled for over 90 or 120 days.
He told the Advertiser their councillors previously engaged with residents in the different communities and ratepayers showed they had been languishing in debts for many years because of the tough economic climate. They stated the pandemic made matters worst, with many account holders saying they have lost their jobs or other sources of income.
“We are not acting irresponsibly as portrayed by some political opportunists. We are not saying people should not pay; those who can afford to pay must do so. But the City must give the financially distressed ratepayers some relief, a 75% debt write-off.
“The City must make it its responsibility to look at the duration of all the debts, and the debts that are above 90 days shall be written off.
“We have residents, including pensioners, who have been battling to service their old debts because the pandemic adversely affected them.
“Many previous attempts to collect the money by asking the badly affected people to pay thousands of rands to settle their old debts and keep their account up to date proved impossible, instead the outstanding amounts continue to increase,” said Dlabathi.
According to Dlabathi, a previous municipal report showed the outstanding debt from the previous financial year had amounted to multi-billions of rands, and it’s clear that money cannot be recovered. Instead, the outstanding amount kept on skyrocketing.
When asked if the ANC doesn’t see the 75% debt write-off as a demand that may seem exorbitant to the City, Dlabathi pointed out the represented communities were initially demanding a 100% debt write-off. However, as the ANC Caucus, which fully understands the municipal system, they didn’t want to be unreasonable, thus negotiated with the communities an agreement for a 75% debt write-off.
“Otherwise, let’s sit down and have a meaningful engagement and enter further discussions that will see our financially distressed communities offered debt relief of the debts above 90 days.
Not financially viable
Meanwhile, Ekurhuleni multi-party coalition government rejected the proposal, saying wholesale debt write-off is not financially viable, as it could bring the municipality to its knees, thus hampering service delivery.
The metro, however, pointed out it is drafting a debt review policy that will allow the City to assess debt relief applications on a case-to-case basis, which will then see successful applicants receiving a percentage of debt write-off.
Also Read: ANC’s call for 75% debt write-off reckless, short-sighted – Mayor Campbell
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