Metro wants to write off new debt
Residents of Ramokgopaville owe the metro more than half a million rand, which the metro was now writing off.
Andrew Ngozo
The Tshwane metro will reportedly write-off more than half a million rand owed by the residents of Ramogkopaville to bad debt in contravention of the credit control policy and legislation, the DA said this week.
Gert Visser, member of the finance oversight committee for the metro, said a report before the mayoral committee indicated that 214 low-cost houses were allocated to residents of Ramokgopaville in December 2014. “Residents took occupation of the properties in March 2015,” said Visser.
“Now the council seeks to write off R535,453.12,” he said. “Important to note here is that we are dealing with new and fresh debt.”
He said the reasons for the write-off were “the billing on water services is unserviceable; the service contractor who built the houses used water and the city did not take into consideration consumption incurred and the metro charged the notice fees for non-payment without considering queries regarding the water charges”.
Visser said that was not justification for the write-off and did not comply with the credit control policy which stated that particulars of the debt and the reasons for the write-off should be attached to the report. “This attachment is lacking,” he said, adding that before the write-off, the debt should be deemed un-collectable and that was not the case in this instance.
Visser said what the report would do would be to promote a culture of non-payment not only in the Ramokgopaville but in the greater metro. “Other residents would look at this and say one gets rewarded for not paying their accounts,” he said adding that residents of Ramokgopaville were not indigent.
“This debt cannot be written off as doing so would be unlawful.”
The Tshwane metro had not responded to an enquiry by the time of publishing.
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