The municipality has reached the decision to scrap all outstanding municipal debts for residents on the indigent list who were removed from the list due to data cleansing.

Outstanding debt from January 2021 to end of July 2021, will be written off while indigents removed from the list had also been reinstated.

Only indigents who qualify, and have been taken off the list due to outstanding documents will have their outstanding debts written off.

Meanwhile, a six months grace period has also been approved by council for indigent residents with outstanding documents to update the municipality.

All residents removed from the indigent list who applied fraudulently, including municipal employees, will still be responsible for outstanding debt and have also not been reinstated on the list.

Meanwhile, the municipality has issued a stern warning to residents to ignore messages going around that no rates and taxes are payable on municipal accounts over the six month grace period for indigent residents.

There is no council resolution to the effect. Problems with accounts indicating R00.00, will be corrected, alongside all other individual account problems.

Residents still have to settle their rates and taxes monthly, like normal, in order not to incur outstanding debt.

The EFF welcomes the decision with party Whip, Mr Enos Sebesho, saying “we warned the ANC about the consequences before the violent riots, which resulted in an emergency council sitting where electricity sales were opened to all with outstanding debts, the ANC again listened to us, and scrapped the debt entirely for indigents”.