Families who are living in homes registered under their deceased parents’ names benefiting from free basic services from a Mpumalanga municipality have six months to sort out their documents.
In six months, the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality, which has been thrown in the spotlight following recent protests over municipal property rates and tariffs, hopes to have sorted out its indigent register, which has been found to benefit households that do not qualify.
The municipality gives a monthly subsidy of about R641 in free electricity and water, including free refuse removal and municipal property rates to those on its indigent register.
Those who were removed from the indigent register in February following a data cleansing exercise have been given six more months to sort out letters of authorities, which will determine who in the family would take over the municipal account.
The municipality had been giving free basic services to about 18,700 indigent households, which cost about R165m per annum, however the auditor-general (AG) picked up that there were at least 5,555 deceased people who were listed and benefiting.
Mothiba Mogofe, executive director financial services, said the data cleansing was more of a necessary evil for the municipality as the AG raised a finding about the municipality’s indigent register and gave the municipality a year to resolve it.
“We needed to do a data cleansing to be able to focus on the entire municipal data base and those who do not qualify would be out of that indigent register, that’s the process that council has followed,” Mogofe said.
In February this year, 7,850 households were removed from the indigent register and were notified that they needed to reapply, however, only 3,666 had applied, Mogofe said.
“From that 3,666, 1,740 were successfully brought back onto the indigent register,” Mogofe said.
He said there were those owning more than one properties but who were listed as indigents despite not qualifying, while others were living in homes registered under their deceased parents’ names who were enjoying the benefits that their parents qualified for.
Following the weeklong protests, the municipality has now decided to put more than 3,000 households on the indigent register, Mogofe said.
Mogofe said 2,400 of those to be returned to the register were from properties valued at more than R250,000.
However, the community is up in arms after municipal account statements showed that other people’s rates were more than double what they paid while they were still on the indigent register.
Pensioner Lindiwe Moetanalo, 64, from Mhluzi in Middelburg, saw her municipal bill skyrocketing to R1,160 per month from about R123 in the last two months.
She lives in a four-roomed house she received from the municipality back in 1987, with her unemployed 30-year-old son.
Moetanalo was removed from the register without her knowledge, however, Mogofe confirmed after Sowetan inquired about her case that her matter had been resolved and that her monthly municipal property rates would revert to R130.
Another pensioner Dolly Maseko said she was now unsure what to believe as her municipal account has been showing her different amounts ranging from R200 to R2,000 following the recent changes.
Community leader Christopher Mnisi said the community had met on Sunday to discuss the offer made by the municipality and felt not all their grievances were responded to.
“We feel the response of the municipality doesn’t answer our memorandum in which we also complained about rates and tariffs but the municipality focuses on the indigent issue only,” Mnisi said.
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