Residents of Tshwane march against estimated bill photo by Dimakatso Modipa
Thousands of Tshwane residents marched to the City of Tshwane Municipality headquarters (Tshwane House) for the umpteenth time now to hand in a memorandum of grievances regarding estimations that are used by the Municipality.
The readers marched under the banner of four civic movements, namely Inwooners Bahlali Civic Movement (IBCM), Bahlali Operational Civic Movement, South African Concerned Residents Association (SACRA) as well as the Mamelodi Concerned Residents for Service Delivery.
“We are here to raise concern regarding the billing system because our Municipality uses estimates to bill our people and these estimates are very high,” said Inwooners Bahlali Civic Movement (IBCM) secretary general Mpho Kgosana.
“Another issue that is of concern to us as residents is that the Municipality bills residents for something that it calls miscellaneous charges and this becomes problematic because miscellaneous charges mean additional expenses, so the question is what are those miscellaneous expenses within any given household?” asked Kgosana.
He said residents are billed for water, electricity and refuse collection and this is understandable, but that the so-called miscellaneous charges don’t make sense at all.
“We are saying to the Municipality please scrap the miscellaneous charges because no one, including City of Tshwane officials seem to know what those miscellaneous charges are,” demanded Kgosana.
He also pointed out that billing for waste removal always flactuates and wanted to know whether the Municipality has a scale which it uses to determine the weight and size of the collected waste material in every household.
He demanded that the waste removal bill must therefore remain constant.
Mokgothu revealed that what the Municipality does is to merely look at the size of any given house and seeing that it is a double-storied or relatively bigger house, the waste bill becomes higher, with the assumption bring that there are many people living in the said house, only to find that the house is occupied by an old woman who lives alone therein.
He therefore called for a flat rate regarding waste removal.
“The other issue is that the Municipality charges VAT on basic services which according to the Freedom Charter as adopted by the ANC on 26 June 1955 must be free, so they charge VAT on water, waste removal and the so-called miscellaneous expenses and all these charges end up with residents having to pay sky-rocketing bills,” lamented Mokgothu.
He said like in the case of waste removal, the Municipality uses estimations to bill residents for water consumption.
“Through these estimates the Municipality is taking away money from the poor, and this means the Municipality actually owes the poor and not the other way round,” asserted Mokgothu.
Residents of Tshwane march against estimated bill
Mokgothu also called for the City of Tshwane to revitalise derelict and dilapidated buildings in Tshwane or alternatively hand these dilapidated buildings to residents of Tshwane who will then collaborate with business people to put such neglected buildings to good use, and this will alleviate the high rate of unemployment in Tshwane.
Chairperson of Bahlali Operational Civic Movement Martin Lusenga told Tshwane Talks that the faulty billing system whereby estimations are used by the City of Tshwane is a nightmare to the residents.
He said his organisation is also worried about residents of Tshwane who were forcibly removed from their shacks.
South African Concerned Residents Association (SACRA) President Dumi Maifo said residents of Tshwane are complaining about the ever-increasing rent debts which always rise even when people try to pay up.
He said the Municipality is treating residents unequally because those who don’t have electricity and water meters in their households don’t get to pay for services while those with meters are expected to pay.
“We are saying the Municipality must get rid of its meters in our households so that we won’t be charged anything as well,” said Maifo.
He said another issue that leads to estimations is that in most cases people who have been hired to read meters are not residents of such areas, get lost when trying to locate houses and end up resorting to estimations.
President of Mamelodi Concerned Residents for Service Delivery Oupa Mtshwene decried the fact that the Municipality is offering residents amnesty for their debts without proper public participation meetings, thereby ignoring the Municipality Systems Act.
City of Tshwane deputy mayor Eugene Modise sign a memorandum
“Elderly residents are called to meetings at schools and community parks and told lies that their debts will be scrapped, yet the truth is that nothing of that sort will ever happen and these politicians are merely seeking votes from the poor elderly citizens because the local government elections are around the corner,” fumed Mtshwene.
He said their main aim is for the Municipality to scrap all debts owed by the residents of Tshwane across the board.
“We support the march because city had been defrauding residents for far too long with the estimated bill,” said Secretary general of Tshwane Bahlali Dudula Given Moraba.
“Most of the grievances raised by the residents are things which we are busy working on, like debt relief and illegal electricity after many of them admitted that they had tempered with the Municipality’s meters,” said Deputy Mayor Eugene Modise after when speaking to Tshwane Talks after receiving the memorandum from the civic movements.
He pledged that those who approach the Municipality and admit that they have tempered with the meters will have new meters installed in their households without any repercussions.
He also revealed that people who have erected shacks and houses near the reservoir by the mountainside in Mamelodi East will soon be removed from their dwellings because there is a law which stipulates that no one must stay within a 20 metres radius of a reservoir.
“People living next to the reservoir don’t only steal the Municipality’s water but they also cause diseases by accessing the water that is in the reservoir, and will therefore be removed without further warming as they have been warned before to vacate the said area,” said Modise sternly.
Copy of Memorandum: