R20bn owed by households in Ekhurhuleni

The City of Ekurhuleni is on a campaign to recoup R26 billion from residents and businesses who have been defaulting on their municipal accounts.

Finance MMC Jongizizwe Dlabathi told The Citizen on Wednesday that of the total amount of money the city was trying to retrieve, R20 billion was owed by households.

“Like other municipalities, the city is experiencing constraints on the revenue front and that is why in the last quarter we were sitting with 11 days cash on hand and that is a sign that we are not collecting revenue optimally,” he said.

Township in Ekurhuleni

Dlabathi said townships in the municipality had a glaring culture of non-payment compared to the suburbs.

“The challenge of nonpayment does permeate among different households but it is predominantly in the townships. That is a fact,” he said.

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He said the city is currently running several campaigns to educate residents about the importance of paying for municipal services.

“We have accepted that we have not done enough to foster the culture of payment among households that is the public awareness that I am embarking on.”

Dlabathi said those who were deemed as indigent would receive some assistance from the municipality but they would have to meet the basic requirements.

“To qualify for indigent your household income must not be above R7 000. The other condition is that if your property is less than R500 000 also with that income being less than R7 000.”

Payment arrangements

Dlabathi said the city had come up with several ways of ensuring that revenue is collected from households struggling to keep up with payments.

Those willing to enter into a payment arrangement with the city will have a portion of their debt wiped off to enable them to cope with the payments.

“We are doing this appreciating that with economic difficulties people are not working and the disposable income of many of our households is also constrained.”

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Dlabathi said those who had failed to respond to calls to pay their municipal accounts and not entered into an arrangement with the city would have their water or electricity cut off.

“Those that are owing us and not paying we do a form of credit control, we switch off their electricity and to some extent, we will switch off water, especially for commercial industries,” he said.

Dlabathi said because of the economic reality of many residents, the city was considering other funding models for revenue in the municipality.