Note to Editors: Please find an English soundbite by Cllr Jacqui Uys here
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Tshwane is calling for urgent intervention after the ANC government in Tshwane allowed electricity losses to increase by R300 million in just three months, from October to December 2024.
This is in stark contrast with what this government inherited from the DA, where electricity losses were reduced by R162m between July and September.
The financial rescue mission of the City of Tshwane is the most important step towards ensuring quality basic service delivery to all residents of Tshwane. At the core of this financial rescue mission is the City’s ability to ensure residents pay for services used.
Not only is the city not billing residents for electricity used, but the ANC government is also not keeping up the same pressure to collect on the city’s debtor’s book.
When the DA was removed from government in September, the city over-collected on its service target with a total of R1.9billion for the first three months of the financial year. This equates to an 28% overcollection, comprised of collection on arrear services debts for the first quarter and a proof of a reduction in the City’s debtor’s book. By the end of December the ANC government has reduced this to 22%.
While the City is still seeing an overcollection of R900 million on its overall arrears debt for the first six months of the year, the period for October to December only collected R40 million of arrears debt. This drastic decline in arrear debt collection shows how the efforts of the DA Government to turn the finances of Tshwane around, is slowly waning under the ANC.
We urge the Deputy Mayor and MMC of Finance, Eugene Modise, to not shy away from the difficult decisions needed for financial rescue, but to continue the trend set by the DA to hold residents accountable for their debt to the municipality. This is easily done by settling their accounts in full, making payment arrangements or applying to the affordability committee to have parts of their debt written off so that they can start off on a clean slate and get back into the payment net.