Durban — EThekwini mayor Cyril Xaba has announced an “unprecedented” and “groundbreaking” move that will see the writing off of debts of beneficiaries who inherited properties from deceased owners in the city.
This decision was roundly given the green light by city council members during a marathon council meeting on Thursday at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (ICC).
“This move will allow those who are occupying property without a letter of authority, but willing to pay for municipal services, to make payment arrangements with the City. As a result of this decision, the municipality will also be able to prevent theft of municipal services, such as water and electricity,” said Xaba.
He said the conditions for the relief were for the value of the houses to be less than R1 million and that the property was not more than 24 months old.
The decision, adopted by the council on Thursday, was in line with the Municipal Financial Management Act and the eThekwini Municipality Credit Control and Debt Collection Policy, said Xaba.
He also told council members that the debt owed by the deceased estates where the executors were not appointed was estimated to be more than R900m.
The bone of contention for the City was that the debt was ballooning, as the people who took over the estates were unable to pay the debts owed to the city.
While announcing the council’s decision, Xaba warned that the council reserved the right to terminate services to avoid the ballooning of debt where there was no next of kin willing to take over the responsibility of paying for the municipal services, or the executor had not been appointed.
He urged the qualifying residents, beneficiaries or next of kin of deceased estates to take advantage of this opportunity by approaching the municipality and making payment arrangements.
IFP councillor Jane Naidoo welcomed the decision, saying it would provide the much-needed relief to property owners, and urged Xaba to implement the decision with “immediate effect”.
“This is a step in the right direction to people who were unable to pay their municipal debts. It would definitely offer the opportunity for many residents to start on a clean slate,” she said.
ActionSA’s Zwakele Mncwango echoed the sentiments.
“We welcome this move by the mayor to clear the debts of property owners in the city who inherited the properties. We support this move and we believe that this is a step in the right direction.”
Other political parties, including the DA, also threw their weight behind the decision.
Meanwhile, KZN Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi has called on all local municipalities to prioritise water and sanitation, which remain a challenge in the province.
Buthelezi was opening the two-day South African Local Government Association (Salga) KZN Sanitation Conference at the Coastlands Musgrave Hotel in Durban on Thursday.
He said water and sanitation struck a chord with many people in society as there were still many households with no running water or flushing toilets.
“Cogta wants to come closer to the municipalities. If we look at the business plans of all the water service authorities, one would find that all the business plans are about water and very few are about sanitation,” said Buthelezi.
He said sanitation formed part of the basic rights in the Constitution and was not an option, yet it fell off the radar.
Coupled with that, the issue of infrastructure needed to be addressed.
He also highlighted that when they visited Kenville informal settlements after the fires in July, they found a sanitation design system that was very different from the one in rural areas.
However, he said, governments tended to cater to the urban areas first or more quickly than to rural areas.
Buthelezi said that was why Salga had a duty to knock on the doors of the departments of Water and Sanitation and Cogta nationally.
“If you look at areas such as uMzinyathi and Ugu District where there is the pit toilet system, you would find households with two or three pit toilets because the access to running water is still not available to our people,” he said.
He also called on local municipalities to align their budgets with the core functions, particularly water and sanitation services.
He said that district municipalities should be prioritising infrastructure and that out of 10 districts, only three were prioritising water and sanitation as the core of the budget.
He said the rest of the municipalities were prioritising operations as the core of the budgets.
“We need to change that because no one is better placed than Salga.
“Let us leverage technologies that drive sustainable partnerships as we have seen from today’s (Thursday) presentations to ensure that every household has access to dignified sanitation,” he said.
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