Tshwane municipal manager Mmaseabata Mutlaneng, who is leading the campaign to disconnect non-paying customers, is suffering from sunburn as she’s been spending days on the streets trying to recover billions of rand owed to the city.
Mutlaneng says in just four days she and her team have already managed to collect around R200m, mainly from business, the government and embassies for unpaid municipal services. The campaign aims to collect around R500m.
“By last week Friday, we had collected around R150m and over the weekend we received an additional R40m or so and by now we could be sitting at around R200m,” Mutlaneng said.
She said the campaign was necessary as the city’s credit controllers were often intimidated and threatened by non-paying clients.
She said the city was already seeing benefits despite the campaign receiving “mixed reactions”.
“To be honest with you, we’ve received huge support from government departments as some are now willing to settle their accounts.They in fact acknowledge that it’s unfair for the national and provincial governments to owe us because we are in the same business,” Mutlaneng said.
According to the municipality, government departments and embassies owe more than R1.3bn. Homeowners owe about R8bn while businesses owe more than R5bn.
Last week, Mutlaneng changed her office wear for casual clothes as she and mayor Randall Williams were accompanied by the Tshwane Metro Police Department as they switched off several government departments and large businesses, including the Sheraton Hotel, just opposite the Union Buildings.
Mutlaneng told Sowetan on Monday that the campaign would continue on Tuesday as more government departments and big businesses would be getting unexpected visits.
She said the response had been amazing, with other defaulters making the first move and approaching the city for settlement arrangements as they “don’t want to be embarrassed or be in the media”.
Mutlaneng said they were “not arrogant about it or going out there to be nasty but we just want to assist ourselves and our financial liquidity”. She said next month the campaign would focus on households.
She said the city’s monthly revenue collection rate, which was hovering around R3bn, had started dropping around October last year and had never improved, putting a strain on the city’s ability to honour its financial commitments such as payments to service providers such as Eskom and bulk water suppliers Rand Water and Magalies Water among others.
“We have these service providers in the provision of water and electricity, if we don’t pay them it means in return we would not be able to provide water and electricity to our own people... so we expect our own customers to do the same,” she said.
Tshwane’s negative financial situation has led to two downgrades in one year from ratings company Moody’s, which has made it difficult for the city to raise capital from external sources such as financial institutions.
She said the city hoped that the campaign would lead to an improvement in revenue collection and also help the city improve its systems, including dealing with billing matters among others.
Mutlaneng is ready to hit the road once again today and Friday as she leads the team that disconnects those that have ignored disconnection notices from the city and failed to settle what they owe the metro.
Ironically, among those Mutlaneng and her team have switched off is the water and sanitation department, whose mandate is the provision of water in the country. The department owes around R2.3m on its water account.
“Personally, it has been very interesting... I have burnt my skin a bit, I think I must go for a facial,” Mutlaneng said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.