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No more freebies – Tshwane mayor
Pretoria – The new Tshwane council has started a review of exemptions from rates and services billing that the previous ANC administration is alleged to have handed out, Mayor Solly Msimanga's office said on Tuesday.
“It cannot be that debt owed to the City of Tshwane by other arms of government goes unpaid any longer,” acting mayoral spokesperson Matthew Gerstner said.
Msimanga would expose these debtors and demand full payment at the end of the review he was conducting. Tshwane needed to collect debts to improve service delivery, he said.
Gerstner was responding to claims the EFF had made that provincial and national government departments, the ANC’s provincial offices and its Luthuli House headquarters in Johannesburg had not been paying for basic services such as water and electricity for years.
The EFF accused the former mayors of Tshwane and Johannesburg – Kgosientso Ramokgopa and Parks Tau – of shielding the ANC government as some departments had allegedly not paid utility bills for over five years.
Government debt
Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba’s spokesperson Tony Taverna-
The Gauteng government has expressed concern over the EFF’s statement, stating that it had made a commitment to address challenges around billing and unpaid municipal rates as far back as 2011. In a written response, it said it put systems in place to support municipalities in dealing with the issues, including the creation of a debt committee.
“It functions as the first port of call between the department and municipalities in cases where there are disputes over the disconnection of municipal services because of outstanding debt,” explained the premier’s spokesperson Phumla Sekhonyane.
She said there have been significant improvements in efforts to
The EFF called for an investigation into the accounts of government departments and the ANC.
“And if it is found that indeed the defaults have been protected illegally, the two former mayors must be called to account and charged where applicable,” the EFF said in a statement.
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