Joburg’s broke because city dwellers keep freeloading

Politicians, as we know, are prone to exaggeration.

But this time, DA MP Patrick Atkinson, a member of the standing committee on public accounts, was spot-on when he described the current financial situation of the City of Joburg (COJ) as a “horror show.”

His comments came after a damning indictment of the financial mismanagement and impoverishment of the municipality which runs the biggest and richest city in South Africa… one often described as the economic engine of the African continent.

The grim news came from Fhumulani Rabonda, leader of the Auditor-General’s (AG) business unit in Gauteng and revealed, for perhaps the first time, the horrific truth about Johannesburg.

Although talked around and hinted at now for years, it is the unpaid consumer bills – either through defaults or just plain theft – which have dragged the municipality down into bankruptcy.

Rabonda said the COJ group wrote off R9.5 billion worth of debtors, of which R9 billion were consumer debtors who had consumed municipal services and were unable to pay, or the city was unable to recover these debts, which were then deemed unrecoverable.

He also emphasised the material electricity losses of 30% by City Power, which amounted to R5.7 billion in the financial year.

Rabonda said R3.9 billion of this relates to non-technical loss – primarily attributable to theft, bypassing of meters, illegal calibration of meters, damaged meters, faulty voltage, faulty transformers, billing errors and customers without meters.

There were also material water losses of 45% by Joburg Water amounting to R2.8 billion in the year, Rabonda said.

The AG’s office also pointed the finger directly at political instability – which has ensued through the era of coalition governments – as being responsible for the failure to apply any form of financial control.

But that R9 billion has gone and the time has come to stop the freeloading.