VEREENIGING. – The Sedibeng ANC Regional Office, based at 31 Sentor Marks Avenue, is knee-deep in debt with the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM), says Mr Kingsol Chabalala, MPL and Constituency Head of the DA in Emfuleni North.
“In response to a DA question, Cooperative Governance MEC Paul Mashatile revealed that the ANC now owes R627 175.65 in rates and taxes, which are in arrears to the municipality. This debt has accumulated with an ageing of over 180 days,” says Chabalala.
After the DA submitted questions on the ANC’s office’s arrears a “miraculous payment” of R50 000 was made to cover some of the costs, says Chabalala.
“Last year the ANC-run municipality contracted a debt collection agency to the tune of R157 million to track down residents for non-payment on their municipal bills. The ANC clearly has double standards. It cannot pay its own bills to its own municipality. It’s a disgrace that the ANC-run municipality ignores its own structure’s debt while hunting down others to pay up.”
Chabalala says the DA will follow this matter and ensure that the ANC pays its outstanding rates and taxes.
“Special favours to the ANC cannot be tolerated while thousands of residents in Emfuleni struggle to scrape by funds to cover their arrears.”
* In his official Gauteng Legislature response to the DA’s questions, Mr SP Mashatile, MEC for Cooperative Governance, Traditional Affairs and Human Settlement, said on 5 June this year that ELM had to disconnected the ANC office’s service on 12 occasions between 2012 and 2017.
He said that a dispute with regard to the ANC office’s municipal account had been declared in the past. The query on sewer was resolved in August 2012 by adjusting the sewer service with a journal, with a nett effect of R70 462.20 (credit).
For water, there was a journal passed during May 2013 with a nett effect of R76 038.56 (credit). “There was also an internal leakage on the water that the ANC office needed to fix. Due to the leakage, the consumption was very high between the periods 2011 and December 2016. Since January 2017, the consumption seems to have normalised,” MEC Mashatile explained in his official comment.
