Cape Town - Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has released the estimates of the Non-Financial Census of Municipalities (NFCM) which show that although more services are being extended to consumer units, fewer of them are free.
Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke said the number of consumer units receiving services from municipalities had increased from 2019 to 2020.
With the exception of electricity services, free basic services provided to consumer units decreased from the 2019 to 2020 financial years, he said.
The census described a consumer unit as an entity to which the service is delivered, and which receives one bill if the service is billed.
The purpose of the census was to measure selected aspects of service delivery of municipalities.
“Access to electricity is an important social and economic indicator, and the report will present data on the number of households accessing electricity from both Eskom and municipalities,” Maluleke said.
The report revealed that 2 million indigent households benefited from the indigent support system for sewerage and sanitation and 2.4 million indigent households benefited from the indigent support system for solid waste management.
The census showed that in the Western Cape, 345 882 or 9.7% of South Africa’s indigent households received services from municipalities from 2019 to 2020.
The estimates showed there were 3.6 million indigent households as identified by municipalities and out of this total, 2.7 million benefited from the indigent support system for water while 2.1 million benefited from free basic electricity provided by municipalities.
The Western Cape came a distant fourth behind KwaZulu-Natal with 1 034 931 or 28.9%, Gauteng with 809 845 or 22.6% and the Eastern Cape with 601 602 (16.8%).
The census showed that for the period under review, sewerage and sanitation showed the highest percentage increase (4.3%), followed by water (3.9%), then electricity and solid waste management both at 2.3%.
The census estimates were released less than three weeks after the City pledged to make available R3.75 billion in rates and tariffs relief to qualifying residents in the new financial year, which began on July 1.
Mayco member for Finance Siseko Mbandezi said that in addition to the indigent and rates relief on offer, the City embarked on a debt write-off and payment incentive project last year.
In that project debts owed by indigent households before July 1, 2018, were written off, on condition that an arrangement was entered into to pay more current debts.
“More than R2 billion in old debt has been written off thus far,” Mbandezi said.
The census also showed that the number of people employed by municipalities decreased from 333 412 in 2019 to 311 364 in 2020.
The data showed that there were 23 230 people occupying posts at management level, including mayoral and councillor positions, in all South African municipalities, with 14 209 of these posts filled by men and the remaining 9 021 by women.