Tariff increases for water in the iLembe municipality will be increased by 4% from July.
This was confirmed last Friday when the iLembe municipality concluded its budget of R1.5-billion for the 2022/2023 financial year.
This continues a downward trend in increases since 2020, with increments decreasing from 9.6% to 7% to 4% in the past three budgets.
Neighbouring eThekwini Metro is expected to impose a 5.9% increase.
The 4% increase concerns residents from the four constituent local municipalities in iLembe, namely KwaDukuza (KDM), Mandeni, Ndwedwe and Maphumulo.
Notably, this does not include the greater Ballito area where services are provided by Siza Water as part of a concession agreement with iLembe.
Opposition councillors feel the municipality could do more to cushion the ever increasing price hikes.
iLembe Democratic Alliance (DA) caucus leader Krsna Sing said a rebate should be provided for residents in good standing.
This is particularly prevalent in iLembe, where the municipality is saddled with R609-million in outstanding ratepayer debt.
“The budget does not address aging infrastructure and there is not a part of this district without water leaks. Everywhere you go water is being wasted somehow and this budget does not respond to those problems. It also does not tackle government departments owing iLembe money and that will cause failure to render service to the people,” said Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) councillor, Nduduzo Ncube.
“It is also silent on mushrooming ‘suburbs’ that should be billed to increase the rates collection base,” he said.
In passing the budget, concerns were raised by the opposition over what they deemed an unfair approval process.
The deciding vote came from a new councillor, Sabelo Mthiyane, an African National Congress (ANC) representative councillor from KDM who had yet to be inaugurated.
“We had a full house, where 18 of the 35 councillors are from the ANC. From our position, that should have been 17 given that Mthiyane had not yet taken the oath of office,” Sing said.
After raising the issue and gaining unified opposition support, the council meeting was briefly adjourned.
“The speaker had Mthiyane take his oath during this time, but we do not think this was fair. It should have been done before the meeting and it seems that the ANC just wanted to push the budget through,” said Sing.
The budget ultimately passed with all of the opposition parties placing their rejection on record.
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