Municipal survival demands paying what is owed

It is sobering to think it will take R1.5 trillion to repair SA’s crumbling municipal infrastructure – and that there will have to be a further R150 billion commitment from government annually to ensure towns and cities don’t go backwards. Those numbers show the scale of the nationwide collapse of cities and towns – which manifests every day in the collapse of infrastructure and service delivery. This implosion even reached our easy-to-shock president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who promised to crack the whip on errant municipalities and their officials.

In his State of the Nation Address last week, Ramaphosa said there will be a radical overhaul of local government, details of which will be in a White Paper to be published shortly. The figures for the restoration of the third tier of government came from Bheki Stofile, the current president of the South African Local Government Association (Salga). Stofile said municipalities had a wide range of functions, but argued that they lack the funding needed to perform these.

“Municipalities are expected to generate approximately 90% of their revenue internally, despite sluggish economic conditions and limited affordability in many communities. “Local government is accountable for approximately 46% of government functions, yet municipalities receive only about 9.5% of the total government budget.” That’s fair enough, as was Stofile’s comment that municipalities are owed about R400 billion by government, businesses and communities. He said if councils are expected to deliver, people should pay what they owe.

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Stofile made a suggestion which makes sense to us: get banks and the SA Revenue Service (Sars) to force people to pay. Banks could refuse to cancel bonds if there are amounts outstanding on municipal bills, while Sars should not issue refunds to those defaulting.

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