Ilembe District municipality is owed R250 million in unpaid municipal bills by businesses and government departments.
KZN MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Nomusa Dube-Ncube was speaking during her department’s ongoing revenue enhancement campaign themed “Pay Your Levies – Nothing for Mahhala” in KwaDukuza on Friday.
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The campaign seeks to encourage people to pay their dues for municipal services which are a crucial part of municipal revenue.
Dube-Ncube, together with KwaDukuza local municipality mayor Ricardo Mthembu, signed a pledge with ratepayers associations, business people and community members to fast-track a speedy payment for municipal services.
“As government, we understand the importance of municipalities delivering services on time. In signing this pledge together with all stakeholders, including big business, we agree that local government is everyone’s business. We are also in agreement that tensions between the local government and ratepayers associations are not helping us to elevate the state of our municipalities.
“As an example, the Ilembe district alone is owed R250-million in unpaid municipal bills by big business and government departments.
“This amount of money, if collected, could go a long way in helping us to deliver a better life for all,” said Dube-Ncube.
She said she was very grateful for the engagement they had with businesses that owe money because they made an undertaking to pay back what is due to the municipalities.
“We are not going to rest until the debt that is owed to this sphere of government in our province is duly collected,” said Dube-Ncube.
The MEC also urged community members to be ambassadors of doing the right thing by paying for levies and services rendered by their respective municipalities.
Ilembe mayor Sduduzo Gumede, KwaDukuza mayor Ricardo Mthembu and Dube-Ncube walked around the town of KwaDukuza, checking illegal connections, cleaning, visiting non-paying business owners and conducting a roadblock, before addressing the residents of Darnall.
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