Former Springs mayor Gert Parsons writes:
With reference to your front page article ‘ Outrage over new metro bill ‘ I would like to comment as follows:
In my opinion it is a lame excuse that this matter must be referred to the new budget as well as that the councillor is not part of the majority party is totally unacceptable.
His party was part of council when the Ekurhuleni Budget, as well as the New Tariffs, were approved on May 23, 2019.
Unless he has recorded his vote against the decision, he was part of the approval of the budget and tariff structure.
In the past, it was permissible and the former Springs Town Councils encouraged developers to erect bigger buildings on more than one of the adjoining small stands owned by the same owner and in fact allowed the buildings to be built over the boundaries of stands when approving the building plans.
This happened in most of the older suburbs where the original sizes of stands were small.
Some stands were only 276 square meters in extent.
This was also allowed in terms of the older town-planning schemes.
Some of these buildings were erected more than 90 ago.
In my recollection, there are at least 800 of these buildings (businesses as well as private residences ) in Springs.
Never before did the council charge for services per stand on these properties, although I notice it was approved at the meeting on May 23, 2019.
I fully agree with Shannon Groenewald that the metro is busy taxing numerous of our vulnerable residents and businesses out of their properties which is totally unreasonable, unacceptable and unfair.
Also read:
Resident charged three times for metro services
Several residents and business people approached me for assistance after receiving their accounts at the end of January 2020.
Mr van der Westhuizen of Geduld Extension also advised me of a number of the residents in his area who are also not in a financial position to afford these tariffs.
I also assisted some business people to declare a dispute with the metro where the owner and the metro mutually agreed to tie properties in terms of a Notarial Tie Agreement and agreed that for all intents and purposes, the property is regarded as one.
I have discussed the matter with Bafana Zumo and Mokete Masikele at Springs Service Delivery Centre (just before the Lockdown ) who advised me that they just follow instructions from Germiston.
I intend, as soon as possible after the lockdown, to discuss this matter with the relevant departments at Germiston and if need be with the mayoral committee.
I am also awaiting legal opinion regarding the legality of the Tariffs as per Schedule 3 published by the metro for the 2019/20 budget.
If a ratepayer is disputing the correctness of a municipal account, (be it a calculation error or a collateral challenge as far as the exercising of a power to levy rates or taxes), a ratepayer is at liberty to declare a dispute in terms of Section 102(2) of the Municipal Systems Act (Act 32 of 2000).
I have noticed that some Councillors regularly appear in the newspaper pointing out problems.
In my opinion we can all see what the problems are: elected councillors get handsomely rewarded to solve these problems and to make sure that residents get value for the taxes they pay.
I think a before and a picture after the problem has been solved, would be more appropriate.
In the past few years there has been a marked deterioration of our once beautiful City of Springs not to mention the deterioration of services.
Fortunately, the municipal elections are just around the corner and residents must make sure that the right representatives get elected.
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