Ratepayers face exaggerated, illegal increases on top of Covid-19 disaster
6 July 2020
Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbites in English & Afrikaans from Willie Aucamp, MP.
As the annual season for municipal increases dawns, Gamagara municipality is the first in the Northern Cape to draw the ire of citizens with its exaggerated and illegally imposed rates and tariffs increases. This has prompted the Democratic Alliance (DA) to call on COGHSTA and Treasury, to intervene.
Gamagara’s 10% increases, which were already loaded to take effect from 1st July 2020, are completely out of touch with the current financial reality in South Africa. The increases are way above the 3% inflation rate and the 4,5% CPI rate. They are also above Treasury’s recommended increases of between 4% and 6%.
Not only are the increases unreasonable but they are also illegal, given that they were implemented without any public participation and without the budget being finally passed by a quorate council.
The short-sighted ANC municipal leadership in Gamaraga municipality, clearly did not take the far-reaching financial effects of the extended Covid-19 lockdown and the economic downturn, into account, when imposing these increases.
There has already been a rise in unemployment, with more and more businesses being forced to close, placing additional strain on financially stressed households. To ask the ever-shrinking group of ratepayers and regular water and electricity consumers, to cough up more than is feasible, will only exaggerate the current situation by driving more citizens towards financial ruin.
The DA refuses to accept a situation whereby citizens, businesses and the agricultural sector, that have made many sacrifices in order to minimize and even avoid retrenchments at this difficult time, are punished even further by the corrupt and increasingly draconian government that wants them to foot the bill for their own corruption and mismanagement.
Gamagara municipality is by no means a law unto itself. Neither can this municipality justify exaggerated price increases. It rates as one of the worst municipalities in the province and has time and time again proven itself incapable of managing its revenue collection and spending. It also finds itself technically bankrupt, despite its average income per capita being the highest in the province.
The DA has written to MEC of COGHSTA, Bentley Vass, and MEC of Finance, Abraham Vosloo, asking that Gamagara’s uncaring, unfair and unsustainable budget be urgently sent back with instructions to rectify and legitimise it, as was done in 2019. We also want Gamagara municipality to be held accountable for not following treasury guidelines and frequently not passing its budgets before the deadlines.
We cannot allow residents to be shamefully exploited through unwarranted price hikes, that will more than likely go towards paying the bloated salary bill for deployed cadres, than restoring municipal services and fixing the damaged economy.
Issued by Willie Aucamp,DA Member of Parliament, 6 July 2020
