Westville Ratepayers’ Association in pursuit of what belongs to them

THE community of Westville is ready to take on the eThekwini Municipality as they embark on the journey to claim non-promulgated property tariffs from 2005 to 2009. The Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA) discovered this during their investigation that was launched late last year. In their quest to fight this, the association hosted a public meeting recently at the Westville Civic Centre where they discussed their tabled strategy on how they plan to reclaim the property tariffs.

Present at the meeting were community members of Westville who came out in their numbers as well as community members who are knowledgeable about the matter. These people are to join forces with the WRA and community as they embark on this journey. The WRA chairperson, Asad Gaffar, said they are prepared to work with community members who are looking for change in their community.

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The Westville Ratepayers’ Association presented their strategic plan that consists of 14 steps they are to take in their journey of reclamation. The steps are as follows:

1) Each individual is to calculate the amount of the non-promulgated property rates for the years 2005–2009. As most people will no longer have their municipal accounts available, the WRA has managed to calculate property rates from 2005 to date, and we can facilitate the calculation percentage increase each year. This percentage is then applied to each account to establish the calculated amount for property taxes for the four years in question.

2) Once the amount calculated by each individual/company has been established, and each individual/company dispute form has been completed and signed by the individual/company, the WRA will declare a dispute with the municipality in terms of Section 102(2) of the Municipal Systems Act 32/2000. The WRA will supply the dispute document.

3) The dispute forms will be collected by a WRA administrator, and the WRA will take all the disputes (in duplicate) to the municipal offices as a batch.

4) Once the dispute forms have been handed in, members can divert their monthly payments to the WRA for as long as and until the full amount of the dispute has been recovered from the municipality.

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5) The WRA will now have funds available. These funds could amount to hundreds of thousands of rands, maybe even millions.

6) All residents who have signed the dispute and are taking part in this process will be legally protected. The costs will be covered by the WRA.

7) The WRA management, together with the membership, will then identify areas that require attention and maintenance, eg, broken streetlights, potholes, missing traffic signs, etc.

8) The WRA will then place the municipality on notice, demanding that these problems be addressed.

9) Should the municipality ignore the demands (which will most probably be the case), the WRA will obtain quotes from local private contractors to repair whatever requires repairs.

10) The WRA then sends these quotations to the municipality, giving them a reasonable time to affect the repairs.

11) Should the municipality ignore these quotations, as they probably will do, the WRA issues instructions to the contractors to do the work.

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12) Upon completion, the WRA pays the contractors and reclaims the cost of the repairs from the municipality.

13) Should the municipality not refund the paid monies to the WRA, we will issue a summons against the municipality and take judgment against the City.

14) Should they still not pay, the WRA applies to court to have the sheriff sell the assets in execution.

The WRA said they are welcoming other ratepayers from different communities in Durban as they are also affected by this. Residents were advised to prepare themselves for this journey and enquire with the association for clarity.

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