City of Tshwane residents have been mobilised to defy the payment of rates and services this month, in solidarity with defaulting customers whose prepaid cards were blocked in December.
The Lotus Gardens, Atteridgeville and Saulsville Civic Association (Lasca) had made the call in order to express its intention to defy the municipality in 2024.
Lasca chairperson Tshepo Mahlangu slammed the City for releasing a media statement last month indicating that it would block prepaid cards of defaulting customers.
Mahlangu said: “City of Tshwane blocked customers’ prepaid cards and vowed to intensify their notorious Tshwane ya Tima campaign, but the residents have vowed to defy the municipality come January 2024.”
He said Lasca had invited the municipality to meetings but its representatives had not attended them
“They refuse to engage in a round table. They refused to engage the aggrieved residents. Now they proudly announce their intention to reintroduce the Tshwane Ya Tima campaign as if they will collect revenue.
“We urge all Tshwane townships to organise themselves against these arrogant bullies. They have declared war against the residents and we won’t fold hands while we are made scapegoats for corruption. We are going to defend ourselves against this municipality,” Mahlangu said.
In a media statement, the city had said it had tightened its credit control strategy to recoup the billions of rand defaulting customers owed it.
“The city wishes to reiterate the message to its prepaid electricity customers whose accounts are in arrears that they will not be able to buy electricity without settling their outstanding debt,” said municipal spokesperson Selby Bokaba.
He said customers whose accounts were in arrears and who attempted to buy electricity would not receive the units. Instead, the money would instead be channelled towards the outstanding debt.
“Previously, the city used to take only 60% of the money for the purchase of electricity. A dedicated team has been established and capacitated to assist with enquiries. A minimum 30% payment of the outstanding debt amount is required for the meter to be unblocked.”
Bokaba said Section 4.6 of the city’s credit control and debt collection policy allowed for either the 60 or 100% blocking of the units on a prepaid meter up until the outstanding amount had been settled.
“With the strict enforcement of credit control, customers must either pay their outstanding bill in full or enter into a payment arrangement with the city for their prepaid meters to be unblocked and to be able to purchase electricity units.”
He said the city had discovered that some customers had declared a dispute in order to avoid or delay paying their accounts.
“If the customers have declared a dispute on their accounts, it does not exempt them from paying the current account while waiting for the resolution of the disputed amount. It is the responsibility of customers to pay for the services that they have used,” Bokaba said.
Lasca, however, said the threat to embark on boycotting payments on municipal rates and services was not its time.
Previously, the organisation had said it would campaign against paying for services as part of intensifying pressure on the city to attend to residents’ service delivery concerns.
Last year, the organisation marched to Tshwane House to complain about inaccurate billing, fraudulent letters of demands sent to defaulting customers and hiring of consulting firms by the municipality.
Previously, city manager Johann Mettler had expressed concern that a rates and services boycott would hurt the municipality financially.
Pretoria News