The City of Joburg has lived up to its word and has begun collecting unpaid rates and services bills from indebted ratepayers at Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) roadblocks.
The crackdown began last week when City officials, armed with their laptops and data of residents who are in arrears, accompanied JMPD officers at roadblocks.
Residents caught up in the roadblocks were either made to pay their debt or sign an acknowledgement of debt.
Tebogo Moraka, the CFO of the City of Joburg, speaking on Newzroom Afrika, said that the city officials were not imposing themselves on residents or threatening them with arrest, but merely trying to recoup the R48 billion owed to the city.
“These roadblocks are part of our efforts to take our services to the residents of the city,” Moraka said.
“(It is also) to augment some of the services that the City of Johannesburg does. I mean, JMPD is a department within the City of Johannesburg. So it's really augmenting those services. But again, like I said, (it is about) taking our services to the people, so that if they need to engage with our officials, they can engage at that particular time, because not all people will have time to visit us at our revenue centre or might not be aware of some of our online platforms.
“So, in essence, what we are saying is, let us take our services to people, obviously with the intention of collecting as much as possible from our residents who owe us money,” he said, adding that the R48 billion owed to the City for electricity, water, rates and services needed to be urgently reduced.
“You would understand that any organisation being owed that kind of money needs to enhance its collection drive, and its policies. We need to enhance it and implement them a bit more aggressively so that we can at least reduce the balance,” he said.
Asked if people resisted the City’s attempts at the JMPD-manned roadblocks, Moroka said the resistance was “surprisingly minimal”.
“Remember, we didn't force ourselves on people. We gave them the option to say ‘we are here if you've got any queries, are you aware that you owe money, if so, you can pay now or enter into an acknowledgement of debt’. We were not forcing ourselves on people,” he said.
In related news, the City of Johannesburg has also pursued its own employees for outstanding municipal debts. In a bid to recoup these dues, the City has collected R13.2 million from its councillors and permanent staff in arrears. As of July 31, 2023, the City retrieved over R7 million directly from the wages of those defaulting on their municipal bills.
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