Sol Plaatje Municipality owed over R3 billion in rates and taxes

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Sol Plaatje Municipality in the Northern Cape is owed over R3 billion in rates and taxes by residents, businesses and government departments in Kimberley and Ritchie.

Over the weekend, the municipality blocked electricity meters of indebted residents, a decision that has since been revoked following threats of violence.

Residents around Kimberley and Ritchie owe the municipality a total of R2.3 billion. This is for rates that include electricity, water, refuse and sanitation.

The municipality says it has previously tried to encourage residents to pay through programs like debt relief to no avail. It says it’s now under pressure to recoup monies owed.

“We are under obligation, we’ve got a debt towards Eskom, what we call the debt relief program that is in place circular one to four and we are forced to pay that otherwise the entire city will be plunged into darkness,” says municipal spokesperson Thabo Mothibi.

Businesses in the province owe over R600 million. The Northern Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Nocci) has called on those owing the municipality to pay but says the municipality should allow businesses around 12 weeks to pay their accounts.

“We need to understand that members and businesses that use the electricity, there needs to be a compromise and it needs to be done on a regular basis. And yes, I am the first person to say business that don’t pay electricity must be cut but then there also has to be a line draw. You can’t go and cut a business on a 30-day account, there needs to be some type of an agreement made between business and the municipality,” says CEO of Nocci Sharon Steyn.

With government departments also owing more than R700 million, Premier Zamani Saul says departments must do the right thing.

“We’ve got an accumulated debt over the period of 20-years, that we as the provincial government have the responsibility to defray. We need to pay municipalities what is due to them but the call we want to make to municipalities, they should not submit to us disputed service fees because most of the departments, they dispute what the municipalities are presenting to us.”

The municipality has urged residents to make arrangements to get their accounts in order.

It says failure by residents to pay negatively impacts the roll out of services.