Pay your property rates and utility bills or be cut off, is the message tardy Bhisho and national government departments have been told by Buffalo City Metro’s city council.
This stern message was delivered by the council on Tuesday.
Government departments owe the city R67m for the municipal services they have consumed.
BCM mayor Xola Pakati presented a gloomy institutional performance report for the current financial year up to December 31.
The report showed that at that point the metro’s debtors book reflected that a total of R2.26bn was owed to BCM by big and small customers.
Although households owed the biggest chunk of debt – R1.52bn – Pakati called for the cutting-off of power supply to government departments, which owed the city R67.7m including current accounts at the end of December.
Businesses owe the city R681m.
Pakati said the metro was below its revenue collection target of 95%.
Councillors expressed disappointment at the 81.9% revenue collection that was made by December as the city had dropped in collection when compared to the same period in the last financial year, when 83.9% was collected.
Pakati said: “Government is not supposed to owe us because we pay our taxes there. Maybe we should consider switching off their electricity. We should. Why not? If we can switch off the indigents why can’t we switch off the government departments? Let’s switch off because we pay tax. Also, business owes us a lot of money ... we should also consider switching them off too. Let’s sort out the collection rate,” Pakati said.
Some of the state’s unpaid BCM bills in December include:
National department of public works: R9m;
EC public works: R16.1m;
Education: R4.3m;
Health: R15.1m;
Socialdevelopment: R318,718;
Transport: R120,381;
Agriculture: R12,263;
Humansettlements: R133,417; and
MPLs: R124,530.
ANC ward 25 councillor Crosby Kolela said: “We should be more proactive, especially with the issue of revenue collection.
“We are not improving. I want to agree with you, mayor, when you say government departments must pay.
“That is not negotiable. They should be cut off. We can’t cut off poor people but leave people who can afford [to pay].
“What is this business debt for? I’ve never heard anything about businesses being switched off. We always switch off for the poor people.
“Let’s start analysing this debt thoroughly. Those who can afford to pay, let’s first switch off electricity for them, no matter who they are,” Kolela said.
The EFF also supported power supply cuts for government departments.
EFF councillor Nozibele Tshabe said: “If we don’t cut the departments off, they will owe us more than this.”
Deputy mayor Zoliswa Matana said: “I’m in agreement. Taking into consideration that in terms of the national Treasury we are expected to collect 95%, today we are taking very seriously the fact that the government and business institutions are owing us so much.
“I’m therefore proposing that we should switch them off so that we take that decision in this council and implement it so that we can at least move a little bit in terms of our collection,” Matana said.
She was supported by ANC councillor Sindile Toni, who said BCM needed to be stricter with departments and businesses “because they do have money”.
Pakati highlighted the Eastern Cape department of health as one of the biggest non-payers.
“The department of health in the province owes us R15m. It’s among the highest of our debtors in government.
“Others owe a few hundred thousand but that must addressed as well.”
However he warned that when the power was switched off there would be major impacts on residents.
“If we switch off the department of health, we will switch off hospitals and that will put us in a major crisis.
“If ever we want to do this thing, we should take into cognisance the social implications that would arise from this.
“But also we should encourage them to pay the municipality,” Pakati said.
The current year’s total gross debt has increased from last year’s R2.13bn to R2.26bn...