LASCA leader Tshepo Mahlangu
Lotus Atteridgeville Saulsville Civics Association (LASCA) has warned the City of Tshwane Municipality not to collect the long-running rent debts owed by the residents of Tshwane.
This as the debt in question is now prescribed debt according to the National Credit Act.
“Where have you heard of customers making arrangements to repay a prescribed debt?” quipped LASCA leader Tshepo Mahlangu.
“This is extortion and it must be condemned,” added Mahlangu.
He ventilated these sentiments after a media briefing on Tuesday whereby Deputy Mayor-cum-MMC for Finance Eugene Modise appealed to residents who are indebted to the City of Tshwane to come forward and make arrangements to repay their rent debts.
To drive his point of view home, Mahlangu quoted a text from the National Credit Act, whereby it is stated that “a prescribed debt is debt that is no longer legally enforceable because it has passed its prescription period and that this is a type of debt that has not been paid or acknowledged for a period of time.”
He further quoted the National Credit Act as follows:
“A prescribed debt is a debt that has become legally extinguished due to the passage of time under the Prescription Act, and Section 126B of the National Credit Act explicitly prohibits any credit provider or debt collector from attempting to collect, sell or reactivate a prescribed debt.”
Mahlangu bemoaned the fact that “the City of Tshwane Finance team deliberately gave Deputy Mayor/ MMC Modise the wrong template once again because what he said during that briefing didn’t make sense at all,” asserted Mahlangu.
“R10 billion has been approved towards scrapping of estimated bills and the City of Tshwane must refer to the Auditor General’s report regarding the issue of estimated bills,” he said.
“Those estimations cannot be categorised to say 30% or 70% must be paid, because the whole so-called debt owed by residents is based on estimations and must be scrapped entirely,” he enthused.
“When gestimators or so-called consulting firms from Tshwane estimate our bills they don’t categorise 30% or 70%, they estimate the whole bill, so the formula presented by Modise for residents to make arrangements to pay a certain percentage of their so-called debt is misleading and very vague,” said Mahlangu.
He said since the debt is now a prescribed debt, the Municipality must just scrap it and start from zero-zero on the accounts of the residents.
“If the Municipality attempts to collect a prescribed debt, then that would be against the National Credit Act; they would be contravening the National Credit Act of the Constitution of South Africa, so we are saying the prescribed debt cannot be collected through backdoor tactics,” he said.
“An attempt by the Municipality to collect prescribed debt amounts to fraud and we as LASCA won’t entertain any fraudulent activities by the Municipality, we won’t shiver and the prescribed debt must be scrapped once and for all,” said Mahlangu.
He said residents must not make any arrangements to repay their debts and that the Municipality must just announce as to when it will start scrapping the debts.
Mahlangu insisted that the findings and recommendations of the Auditor General must not be ignored and pointed out that the Municipality can’t implement consequence management upon the indebted residents and that they as LASCA would closely monitor how the City of Tshwane deals with the issue of scrapping the rent debt.
In response, Deputy Mayor/MMC Modise indicated that the element of “Prescribed Debt” kicks in only if there hasn’t been communication between parties that are involved in a dispute regarding a debt.
“The City has been in constant communication with its customers and Mr Tshepo Mahlangu must read the City of Tshwane’s debt relief scheme with intention to understand it and not try to be the spokesperson of Council,” said Modise.