Debt relief risks punishing those who pay

Don’t you just love the smell of ballot papers in the morning?

Even though the local government polls are still some months away, the ANC is still continuing to throw other people’s money at potential voters to save it from the ignominious reversal it suffered in the 2024 national election.

This time it is, effectively, more of the same sort of ratepayer cash it used to pass a sweet R10.3 billion wage increase package for the South African Municipal Workers Union in Johannesburg… which, in turn, got the union’s bosses to urge workers not to vote for the DA, the ANC’s main opponent in the fight for the city.

Now, the metro council has passed an EFF-initiated motion to write off the billions of rands the city is owed by defaulting customers.

According to reports, residents, businesses and government departments owe the City of Joburg around R50 billion.

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What this means for Johannesburg residents is that households registered on the city’s indigent database who, due to their financial circumstances, are unable to afford basic services such as water, electricity, sanitation and refuse removal, will no longer be required to pay accumulated municipal debt.

There is certainly merit in alleviating the suffering of the people at the bottom of the social pyramid – especially those receiving government social grants – because theirs is literally a daily struggle to survive.

However, there needs to be diligent assessment of who qualifies to prevent a similar situation to that of the National Student Financial Assistance Scheme, where at least 40 000 claimants were found to have lied about their financial status to get government tuition and subsistence money.

If this due diligence is not done, then it won’t be long before the regular payers will stop paying, on the basis of: what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.