Confused about apparently exorbitant billing, ratepayers have of late been coming to the finance department with arrears of as much as R20 000 and R30 000, according to Finance Committee chairperson, Councillor Pierre Ranchhod.
Confused about apparently exorbitant billing, ratepayers have of late been coming to the finance department with arrears of as much as R20 000 and R30 000, according to Finance Committee chairperson, Councillor Pierre Ranchhod.
At a finance committee meeting last Wednesday, Councillor Nozipho Plaatjie questioned the high amount recorded as being owed by residents, R138 000, and asked what action was being taken.
"Our system is not clean (enough) to establish whether these are correct figures and we cannot clean it up until we have a proper system in place," Ranchhod responded.
While these figures might not be correct, they were still being submitted to National Treasury.
Namhla Dlulane, temporarily deployed from the National treasury to manage the city's finances, said she had noticed there were discrepancies in the statements sent out.
"I can't guarantee that [what]is sent to the printers cannot be manipulated in any way," she said, explaining that the statements were printed by an outside service provider.
She said there needed to be a policy on how to manage debtors
Revenue Manager, Luvuyo Sizani, said the high outstanding debt might also be due to people being unable to afford their municipal services, but not coming forward to register as indigents. He said while the public had been informed of this option, not many families had registered for it. He explained that the Indigent Support Policy provided poor households with ongoing access to minimum and nationally specified basic services.
A considerable amount was also owed by former municipal staff and councillors.
Former staff owed the municipality just over R1 million and former councillors owed R45 740. Luvuyo Sizani, Revenue Collection Manager explained that the municipality had agreed to pay a portion of the medical aid subscription for the former municipal staff in question, but instead the municipality had been paying the full amount.
"We don't have the full details of these people," Sizani said.
More details of tens of thousands of rands owed to the municipality by ratepayers and former councillors have emerged – but this can be neither written off nor recovered until Makana's financial system is cleaned up.
