The City of Johannesburg recently announced that it collected a record of R3,6 billion for rates and service charges in August, R400 million more than what was expected.
Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba said over the past four months there has been sustained improvement in the City’s billing and collections with average monthly collections of R3,3 billion from May to August.
“This performance has been possible due to the implementation of a focused, multi-disciplinary approach to billing and collection management, under the leadership of MMC for Finance, councillor Funzela Ngobeni.”
The City is focused on targeting those who have not paid for rates and services, through Operation Buya Mthetho implemented at the start of the year. The operations led to the collection of over R707 million over the past seven months, Mashaba said.
“Further to this, the City has tackled its debtor’s book, which stood at over R18 billion, and this is now producing results. The City has also focused its credit management work on the largest power and water users, which ensures a higher return of revenue for these efforts.”
Mashaba also said that even the agreement that property owners who had objected to the valuation roll still pay monthly rates on their old accounts will not affect revenue after objections are finalised and accounts are backdated.
To grow the City’s revenue has been the main objective this financial year. The hope is that major infrastructure backlogs be addressed meaningfully.
“The fact that the City has achieved a consistent growth in revenue over the past four months bodes well for an adjustments budget which can see more being funnelled into critical service delivery needs of our communities,” Mashaba said.
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