Residents meet councillors at Speak Up Jozi discussion
Members of the city's oversight committee on finance meet residents in Boskruin.
Members from the City of Johannesburg’s oversight committee on finance met with residents to discuss the draft Integrated Development Plan (IDP), city budget, and tariff increases, three days before the deadline for comments was due.
However, though the most vital information for residents and homeowners was unfolded at the Speak Up Jozi! event at Boskruin Community Centre on April 6, only about 20 residents attended.
The poor turnout was blamed on a few things, including that the meeting was held on a Saturday afternoon, while a similar meeting the week before in Bryanston on a weekday evening saw nearly 100 people in attendance.
The residents who did come, however, came with important questions, such as how they could prevent the increases in tariffs that were proposed, why some tariffs are based on service usage and others on property size, and how to object to property valuations they believed were inaccurate.
Ward 106 councillor and member of the oversight committee on finance, Chris Santana, and Shadow MMC for Finance and former Finance MMC for Joburg Julie Suddaby were joined by Ward 101 councillor Ralf Bittkau and Ward 134 councillor Devon Steenkamp.
The group – all elected councillors from the DA – encouraged residents to object to tariff increases if they felt they were unfair.
“In 2018 there was sufficient resistance from residents to the proposed increases that they ended up being 0% even after property values went up,” Suddaby said. “In 2019 the resistance was still good so it was 2% but since then, we have not seen as many people object, or those objections that were made were side-lined for various reasons, and the tariffs have gone up.”
The main proposed tariff increases for 2023/24 are:
- Rates +5.3% (plus adjustment in value of property)
- The discount of R350 000 off the residential property value has been reduced to R300 000
- Water +9.3%
- Sewer/sanitation +9.3%
- Refuse +7%
- Power +18.64%
- Changes to pensioner rebates
Santana discussed the procedure of operational and capital budget planning, reviewing and reporting, and how comments on the city projects would affect the city’s allocation to these. This while Bittkau spoke on his movement in council to have the sewer/sanitation bill based on usage rather than property size, as done in other municipalities. He also encouraged residents to write in to request this as he feels it is fairer.
“A couple living on a large plot is paying the same as 20 people subletting on a property the same size,” he said. “Obviously one group uses the service more than the other.”
Comments can be made by emailing idpcomments2023@joburg.org.za regarding the IDP and ratescomments2023@joburg.org.za regarding the proposed tariffs increase.
Comments on either of these can also be made here, though the deadline is May 9.
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