Don’t let your bills go unpaid
The following increases have taken effect on January 1. What does this mean for residents?
Are you planning on opening your consumer account with the Newcastle Municipality on your new business, or new home? Well tighten up your budgets because these accounts have seen a massive increase to open o9fficially.
After Council approved the new tariffs for opening accounts on October 15 2014, residents can expect the following increases:
Consumer account for residential purposes has increased from R350 to R1 000.
Water only deposit for residential purposes has increased from R50 to R1 000.
Consumer account for a business has also increased from R750 to R1 500.
Finally, consumer accounts for builder’s deposit has increased from R50 to R2 500.
The following increases have taken effect on January 1.
What does this mean for residents?
Firstly, these increases do not just apply to new home-owners or to new plots of land, but will affect all residents.
If you fail to pay your bills at the end of the month, then this will be amount plus the monies you already owe the municipality that will be payable to re-open your account.
Furthermore, Council has approved to increase the current consumer deposits by R500 each time services are terminated due to non-payment.
If you are failing to pay your municipal accounts of time, then expect a heavy levy as this R500 levy will continue to be added to the respective amount until a time that the deposit is two-and-a-half times the latest consumption amount including VAT.
A municipal official, who wished to remain anonymous explained, “We took this decision to firstly discourage residents from not paying their accounts, due to the high levies associated with reopening the account. Secondly, these charges have not been changed for a number of years and it was decided that with the current inflation rate and cost of services, the new amounts would be more appropriate to ensure the municipality was receiving the right price.”
The official was questioned regarding the negative impacts these increases could have on residents who struggle to pay for their monthly municipal services and for whom the termination of services was quite a common occurrence.
“We understand that many members of the community will find these increases high, but the idea is to increase the flow of income into the municipality and to ensure guilty residents stop abusing the systems.”
