Like many municipalities across the country, Mogale City Local Municipality continues to grapple with growing debt as a result of defaulting consumers.
According to Mogale City spokesperson Adrian Amod, this is despite ongoing efforts to collect maximum revenue for supplied utilities such as water, electricity, refuse removal and other mandatory monthly charges such as property rates.
He said as of July 1 this year, the municipality owes an excess of R3.5b with household debt accounting for R2.4b while business debt amounts to R730m. This stems from the non-payment of municipal-provided services.
“Not only does this place immense pressure on the ability to pay creditors such as Eskom and Rand Water to supply these much-needed basic services, but it also becomes virtually impossible to provide other municipal services such as road maintenance, grass cutting, by-law enforcement, the upkeep of public facilities such as libraries, etc.
“To ease pressure on the already strained fiscus, the municipality is stepping up a gear with its phased debt collection drive that advocates for business and residents to pay for their usage or face the consequences of disconnection of services or litigation where required. Established in November 2022, the first phase of the debt collection drive ‘Mogale Ya Tima’ targeted at indebted businesses has yielded positive results and the municipality is pushing ahead with the second phase which still includes business but now also targets owing households. This drive strives to aggressively collect debt due to the municipality from those who can pay but choose not to,” Amod said.
While the municipality noted the effects of Covid-19 and growing socio-economic challenges, owing businesses and residents will be accommodated through payment arrangements in line with the municipality’s Credit Control and Debt Collection Policy. The policy further makes provision for the complete interest write-off of debt settlement.
“We, therefore, appeal to our residents and businesses in Mogale City to be responsible citizens by not only paying for their share of consumed services but making that binding contribution in creating a stable, growing and economically viable city for all its residents and businesses,” Amod concluded.
