The state of affairs within Westonaria Local Municipality is apparently in shambles once again and residents are up in arms after the feared tariff increases recently announced by the municipality were officially adopted last Thursday.
Residents will now start paying 40 percent more for their rates and taxes as of 1 July.
This is according to Westonaria DA chief whip Piet de Jager and caucus leader Colin Turner who say that the municipality went straight ahead and implemented the “ridiculous” tariffs despite objections raised by residents.
“The municipality re-evauated property values and increased them by 30 percent across the board,” says De Jager.
“This does not mean that the actual market value of your property increases, but it does give them the opportunity to charge you rates based on the new property values.
“For instance my house is worth R700 000 in the property market and it was revalued to R910 000.
“This means that I will have to start paying more than R1 000 for my property rates as of 1 July as opposed to the R583,00 that I am paying now.
“It is also worth noting that I am currently paying R54.06 for refuse removal but according to the new rates, I will have to pay R120 as of 1 July,” says de Jager who adds that he among other residents cannot afford this.
Meanwhile, Turner says that the municipality will fail in its objectives.
“The proposed rates are just unreasonable and unrealistic.
“The municipality seems to be forgetting that most people in Westonaria are pensioners, mineworkers and unemployed people.
“They are already struggling with the current tariffs.
“How will they cope with paying 40 percent more?”
According to Westonaria Chief Financial Officer Vincent Mkhefa, Turner and de Jager are missing the point.
“I did explain to them in our previous meetings that the increase in tariffs is influenced by the demand for services,” says Mkhefa.
“If the community expects more, then they should be prepared to pay more.”
He also rubbishes allegations that the municipality did not take residents’ concerns into consideration when finalising the budget.
“Initially we had proposed an 80 percent increase and we decided to take it down to 40 percent owing to the fact that they are unaffordable.
“The decrease is the product of our public participation programme.
“It is also worth noting that the Municipal Finance Management Act clearly states that the Mayor must make the budget available for public comments and we did exactly that.
“We even went further by hosting 13 meetings in the community to discuss this budget even though the legislation does not require this engagement.
“If we wanted to hide anything we would not have gone through this process of engagement,” says Mkhefa.
