Mopani fails to collect water revenue-DA

The DA alleges that for the past three financial years, MDM has been unable to collect revenue to at least meet the 95% national target set in the service delivery and budget implementation plan (SDBIP). “The main form of revenue generation for the municipality is water and sewer transactions from the local municipalities. Mopani has no strategies to improve revenue collection.

The municipality appointed billing administrators in 2020, but there has been no improvement in the revenue account and collection. Mopani has failed to supervise the function of billing administrators as only Ba-Phalaborwa has provided a report out of all the municipalities. In the last financial year, the municipality budgeted for the purchase of water meters, but there has been no data and status of meter readings.

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The municipal revenue billed from local municipalities in the 2022/2023 financial year amounted to R259.6 million for water and sewer services, however, a total collection of R100.7 million was not transferred by the local municipalities to the district,” said Rodney Mavundza, DA councillor in MDM. He said that MDM as the water authority lacks strategies to improve revenue collection from consumers.

“Mopani appointed billing administrators as a strategy to assist in collection of revenue but it seems to have improved the situation. “The district incurred irregular expenditures of R113 254 013, 76 in the 21/22 financial year, R99 783 618, 70 in the 22/23 financial year, and a total of R143 713 441, 97 in 2023 from water-related projects, largely due to supply chain management (SCM) policy non-compliance.

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“They urgently need to come up with strategies to improve the collection of revenue from water and sewer services and the work of billing administrators needs to be monitored to ensure their effectiveness. “They must finalise the signing of service level agreements with local municipalities to improve revenue collection and implement it to avoid debts with Lepelle Northern Water and Department of Water and Sanitation,” he said.

Herald contacted Mopani District Municipality’s spokesperson, Odas Ngobeni, for comment on the allegations. He said that the municipal manager is not able to respond until he receives the letter. Mavundza confirmed to the Herald that the letter was sent electronically to Mogano. An update will be published once the municipal manager responds to the letter.