Joburg tells residents ‘it’s time to pay up’
The City of Joburg says there is no excuse for residents who have the means to shirk paying their municipal bills – telling them to prioritise their monthly rates and taxes over luxuries like DStv.
Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Finance in the city, Dada Morero, said that residents who can afford to do so owe it to the city and the most vulnerable in their communities to pay their dues.
He called on residents who can afford to pay “to do the right thing” and pay up for services they have consumed. He said that communities must prioritise their municipal accounts the same way they prioritise luxuries such as pay-TV and retail shop accounts.
“If the municipality doesn’t get the money from ratepayers, we can’t do all the service delivery things that more and more of our communities are calling for. Residents must find a healthy balance between paying for their municipal accounts and DStv accounts,” he said.
He warned that the city’s coffers were fast drying up due to the culture of non-payment.
According to Morero, about 65% of its annual budget comes from revenue from ratepayers. The city is expected to be self-funding, and raise revenue from services like electricity and water supply, and property rates and taxes known as rates.
Municipalities also generate or receive income from a variety of other sources, including grants and subsidies from national government, loans, fines and penalties that the municipalities issue, the city said.
“The money raised not only pays for basic services such as roads, refuse collection, traffic control, sewers, lights and water, but also for an expanded community police service, housing for the poor, and a refurbished bus services amongst other services,” it said.
“Residents must continue to pay their municipal accounts on time and in full to ensure that they have electricity, clean and sufficient water, their waste is collected regularly, and have better roads to drive on,” Morero said.
Checkered service delivery
Service delivery in the City of Joburg has been handicapped for much of the year, owing largely to political instability and an inability for the political parties in the metro to hold onto a mayor.
Trouble for the city started in late 2022 when the DA-lef coalition that had governed the city since the 2021 municipal elections collapsed, with COPE and PA members turning against their partners and siding with the ANC and EFF in a series of council votes.
This ultimately saw former mayor Mpho Phalatse ousted and then unlawfully replaced with Morero in the mayoral chair.
After legal challenges, Morero was removed and Phalatse reinstated – but this did not last long, and she was eventually replaced by Al Jama-ah’s Thapelo Amad.
Amad’s time in the position was also short-lived. He resigned from the position at the end of April and was eventually succeeded by fellow Al Jama-ah councillor Kabelo Gwamanda.
During this prolonged game of musical chairs in South Africa’s richest city, MMCs and other positions were flipped, changed and switched around, with many projects started by the previous coalition government left in the lurch.
Meanwhile, residents in the city have had to contend with crumbling infrastructure, a water crisis, an energy crisis, and other service delivery failures.
Read: Politicians continue to play musical chairs with South Africa’s richest city
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