Municipalities blame residents for debt

The latest excuse is that municipalities are in good standing and that it is the households and businesses that are in arrears on their accounts. Which makes little sense because the accounts in arrears cannot be for services rendered since these services would’ve been disconnected.

In a fin24 article with headline “Municipalities can't pay up because they're not being paid”, MPs hear reporter Lameez Omarjee wrote:

The debt owed to municipalities far outweighs the debt municipalities owe to Eskom and water boards, members of Parliament heard on Tuesday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa's address during his State of the Nation announced that the government would allow municipalities in financial good standing to procure power from independent power producers.

The South African Local Government Association (Salga) represents 257 local governments. Commenting on the financial position of municipalities, Thembi Nkadimeng, president of Salga, noted that R25 billion and R14 billion is owed to Eskom and water boards, respectively, and that they are threatened with disconnections from these entities for failure to pay.

Municipalities in turn are owed close to R170 billion by households, businesses and government for services rendered.

Households account for the majority of the debt - R120 billion - followed by businesses, which owe R25 billion, and government, which owes R10 billion.

Incompetence gets laid at the feet of the everyday man who has no power to effect any change. The ULA has a solution where the power is not in the hands of the government but we the people get to decide. The choice whether we want to accept the solution is also in our hands, by giving your mandate at www.ulacongress.com or remain at the mercy of the government.