Customers from both affluent suburbs and townships, including businesses and government entities, are owing millions of rand in municipal rates and taxes to the Tshwane Metro.
In fact, one of the five top communities in financial trouble with the municipality is ward 42, which includes Waterkloof and Monumentpark. The ward is collectively facing a debt of R756.7 million with a payment rate of 53,68%.
The list of the highest owing wards also featured ward 101, including Silver Lakes and Boschkop, which owes R726,5m with a payment rate of 40,23%.
Also deep in debt is ward 84, inclusive of Queenswood and Kilner Park, and owing R485,3m with a payment rate of 29,69%.
Mamelodi West under ward 17 also made it to the list with a R485,6m debt and a payment rate of 29,69%
Customers in Mabopane in ward 21 are collectively owing R449,5m with a payment rate of 12,9%
This was revealed by MMC for Finance, Jacqui Uys, who said that customers in ward 69, including Centurion, had the highest payment rate of 69,73%.
She was addressing assumptions of some residents who are demanding that the municipality should focus on disconnecting electricity from areas they believed to have a high rate of defaulting clients.
Uys said the City received such calls amid the ongoing #TshwaneYaTima revenue-collection campaign, which includes disconnecting electricity from customers in arrears.
The campaign aims to recoup R23.3 billion owed by defaulting customers, consisting of businesses, government accounts and various communities across Tshwane.
She said the highly indebted customers of the municipality came from both the suburbs and townships, and vowed that the revenue-collectors would go after all debtors.
“The City of Tshwane has capacitated the #TshwaneYaTima revenue-collection campaign with more teams to increase the number of daily disconnections,” she said.
Uys said the City was already seeing the impact of the campaign on its daily cash collections: “The current rate of collections will see us collecting R500 million of the R1 billion monthly stretched target as per the financial rescue plan, bringing cash collections for March to about R3,5 billion.”
She added that Tshwane Ya Tima had shone a light, “on what seems to be a corruption ring of disconnections and reconnections, and a forensic audit has been launched into the possible involvement of employees”.
“The City is also embarking on a process to open criminal cases for both theft and tampering against owners of property with illegal connections. We urge all residents with information to come forward so that we can put an end to this corruption and looting that got the City to where it is,” she said.
The City has repeatedly urged consumers facing financial difficulties to make payment arrangements by approaching the municipality before they are disconnected from the power grid.
Pretoria News