The Mamelodi Concerned Residents for Service Delivery (MCRSD) welcomed the cancellation of arrears bills for indigent people, but said the Tshwane metro has failed a lot of other people in Mamelodi and other townships.

The MCRSD is calling on the Tshwane metro to scrap all abnormally high electricity and water bills for all residents, not only indigent people.

Oupa Mtshweni, president of MCRSD, said: “We are all in this together. The abnormal billing and the estimations of electricity and water bills affect everyone in Mamelodi and around Tshwane.

“Tshwane metro is failing us from time to time, [and] instead of following the Municipal Systems Act and conducting a public participation meeting before taking any decision, it went and scrapped municipal bills for [indigent people only].

Mtshweni said they had been complaining to the metro for years, asking it to scrap debts for everyone.

“The unfair billing system of water and electricity must be scrapped for all, young and old, because there are child-headed families… and unemployed families with abnormal bills, and those who are employed but can’t afford to pay these bills,” he said.

“We need an urgent public participation meeting to discuss a way forward regarding scrapping debts, flat rates, RDP houses fraud and the water and electricity billing system, which is high [that] the residents can’t afford to pay.”

In 2018, a court order was obtained against the Tshwane metro, in which the Pretoria High Court ordered the metro to cancel debts.
Allegedly, according to Mtshweni, this has not yet been done.

“It is not our fault, it’s the Tshwane metro that put us in this position by ignoring the judgment made by the Pretoria High Court.”

Mtshweni has proposed to municipal officials that residents pay a flat rate of only R40 per month for services, arguing that fraudulent or faulty estimation billing systems are responsible for the current high existing debt.

The MCRSD has also demanded the total scrapping of all municipal debts and an end to the #TshwaneYaTima debt collection campaign.

“The municipality doesn’t take action against people squatting in informal settlements, even though they use water and electricity without paying for such services. Up to date, nothing had been [done] to resolve this issue,” he said.

A concerned resident, Jack Semelane, said: “We have handed in memorandums demanding [that] the Tshwane metro scrap all debts for all, and to fix wrong and abnormal billing.”

He called on the Tshwane metro to call a full public participation meeting.

A pensioner, Selina Baloyi, said she was happy to see her municipal bills being cancelled.

She said she owed thousands of rands, and she could not afford to repay as she is surviving on a social grant.

She promised to keep her electricity and water bills up to date going forward.

Rekord is still awaiting comment from the Tshwane metro.

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