Allegations of non-paying councillors surface

While the Randfontein Local Municipality urges residents to pay their municipal accounts mainly their electricity bills, there is reason to believe that municipal employees including ward councillors are not leading by example and are in arrears amounting to thousands of rands themselves.

This is according to media reports which indicate that amounts owed by members of the council for their respective residences in Randfontein amounts to over a whopping R1 million for their Eskom accounts. This is for this year alone and the municipality is owing the power utility R89 million.

However, unlike other residents, it appears that these councillors and municipal employees have become exception to the rule and never suffer any power cuts even when in debt.

According to an article published in the Sowetan, the highest bill from a staff employee was an outstanding amount of more than R90 000 while another employee allegedly owes the municipality over R50 000. Other documents from various members of staff and ward councillors indicate that they owed monies ranging from R50 000 to R97 000 individually.

These are but some of the employees who owe the municipality but have not suffered any consequences to that effect. It is also worth noting that the municipality has over the months implemented power cuts in various places in Randfontein for residents who have failed to honour their municipal accounts.

This has resulted in numerous protest actions throughout the area were residents pleaded with the municipality to allow for a payment arrangement plan.

The Herald has since spoken to Randfontein mayoral spokesperson Lucky Chiya who disputes this and says that councilors and municipal employees are honouring their payments.

“All our clients including councillors and staff members are subjected to a credit control policy which states that services will be disconnected should there be a failure to honour such payments everyone is subjected to this,” Chiya said.

“Therefore it is important to note that to ensure this, we have a system in place where employee’s salaries are deducted on a monthly basis through our payroll department,” Chiya continued.

He added that the records speak for themselves.

“Our records indicate that our councilors are honouring their payments and those who have huge amounts have inherited such debt either from parents or relatives hence the reflection of high amounts. In line with this, necessary arrangements have also been made to service those debts,” Chiya concluded.