Joburg councillors and employees owe the city millions in unpaid bills

The City of Johannesburg has revealed that its own councillors and employees owe the city millions of rands in outstanding municipal bills.

The city has cracked the whip on employees with overdue accounts and those who have defaulted on payments for services.

It said a total of R13.2million has been collected from Johannesburg councillors and permanent employees as of 31 July 2023.

The City of Johannesburg added it also deducted more than R7 million from the councillors and permanent employees’ salaries; who are behind on their municipal bill payments.

“The city also collected an additional R5.2 million from councillors and employees’ direct payments,” it said.

Outstanding debt

According to the city, out of a total of 13 323 employees who are in arrears, about 140 of them are councillors and 13 183 are staff members.

“Councillors collectively owe about R3.1 million in overdue municipal services, while the management – which includes levels like chief executives, heads of departments, directors, deputy directors, assistant directors, and supervisors among others – owes a combined R9.8 million; and the rest of the R76.3 million debt is owed by the rest made up of junior staff,” it said.

Kgamanyane Maphologela, director of customer communications for the city’s group finance department, said employees are expected to be the first ones to promote and implement basic principles of public administration.

“The credit control action that is taken by the city against its own employees is to demonstrate that we are coming after anyone who owes the city in unpaid municipal bills. It’s a firm demonstration that our credit control policy is enforced indiscriminately, including against our own employees, whom we expect to be exemplary in their conduct.”

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Warning

Maphologela said some of the staff that owe the city money have since made payment arrangements to settle their outstanding debt.

According to Maphologela, the city had to be strict and apply the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 against those employees in arrears to the city with their municipal services.

“Section 10 of Schedule 2 of the Act states that a staff member of a municipality may not be in arrears to the municipality for rates and services for a period longer than three months, and a municipality may deduct any outstanding amounts from a staff member’s salary after this period.”

She said the city is doing “everything in its power” to chase after municipal debt, as this affects service delivery.

Maphologela has warned that in the coming weeks and months, the city will intensify its credit control drive across the city in a bid to collect outstanding revenue from property owners.

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