Government departments must lead by example and pay for City of Joburg services

One of the stories that has never made sense to me is how government departments and parastatals continue to owe hundreds of millions to entities in the City of Joburg.

Our City News recently reported that City Power and Joburg Water are owed a combined R1.3-billion for unpaid services. City Power is owed R754-million, while Joburg Water is owed just more than R600-million. This huge debt includes what is owed by government departments and parastatals – including Transnet and Prasa, which owe R43-million and R40-million, respectively.

The total outstanding debt for services, rates and taxes owed to the City of Johannesburg is a whopping R71-billion. This is the debt owed by households, businesses and government departments. The City’s collection record is poor, and the debt continues to rise without a clear plan for how they intend to tackle it.

The biggest culprit with outstanding debt is the Department of Education, which owes R268-million to Joburg Water, followed by Health, which owes R106-million. What is most surprising is that most of this debt is more than 91 days overdue.

And this is where it gets interesting, if not sinister.

Any household with an unpaid account for more than 30 days is issued a pre-termination notice and given 14 days to remedy the account or face disconnection. But it seems there is a different set of rules for government departments and parastatals. How are they allowed to rack up such humongous bills in the first place?

In a country and a city with a history of non-payment for services, how are ordinary citizens and households expected to pay when the very government that should be leading by example is not doing so? This is allowed to happen without consequence. How are these entities expected to continue providing services when the government itself is a culprit?

It is shameful that this has been allowed to continue. It makes one wonder what the so-called monitoring and evaluation department’s job is when it is clear that no one is holding these departments to account.

Lately, embattled Joburg mayor Dada Morero has been on a disconnection drive in an attempt to show that the City of Joburg is serious about collecting outstanding debt. This only serves as a PR exercise, since it does not deal with the underlying issue. Surely cutting off schools and hospitals is not going to help anyone. It would be akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It should not have to get to that point. Government departments must lead by example and pay up. DM