Cogta targets non-paying councillors
R1.5 million in rates is owed by councillors in KwaZulu-Natal.
COUNCILLORS who are found to have defaulted their rates payments stand to lose their jobs.
The KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has instructed municipal councils in all KZN’s 61 municipalities to institute disciplinary action against any councillor found to have defaulted on his or her rates, as this constitutes a violation of the councillors’ code of conduct.
This comes after an in-depth investigation by the department on a number of compliance issues by municipal office bearers and officials which included investigations into payments of rates by councillors, which is an obligation of all municipal residents except those who qualify as indigents.
The investigation has revealed that a total of R1.5 million is owed by councillors to various municipalities throughout KZN.
“I am disturbed to learn that there are councillors who are not leading by example in their municipalities by not paying their dues to the municipalities which they represent. While the number of delinquent local government leaders is relatively small, we nevertheless view their conduct in a serious light because they are bringing their municipalities into disrepute,” said the MEC.
“These councillors should not be serving in this important sphere of government. We need a local government that is professional, delivery-driven and free of the ills we have witnessed in the past. As leaders we cannot honestly ask communities to pay for their municipal services when we ourselves are not walking the talk,” she said.
She added that this conduct has compromised the recent good audit reports from the Auditor-General, where at least nine clean audits were recorded, up from only one in the previous financial year.
“I have since ordered the Speakers of municipal councils to convene a meeting to deal with this issue without delay and report back to the department. We take a dim view of such practices and we want to see consequences,” she said.
“Those councillors who wish to dispute their account bills, must take the necessary steps speedily as we cannot allow this figure to accumulate any further. Our municipalities can ill afford councillors who owe rates while they depend for their livelihoods on ordinary ratepayers.”
Dube-Ncube has also vowed to extend the investigation to civil servants in every other sphere of government.
