Johannesburg - While the City of Joburg cries poverty with arrears of R2.9 billion accumulated during lockdown, many people, including large property companies, are still enjoying a zero rating on their up-end properties and are therefore not paying rates.
A property owner, Linda Horsfield, was mistakenly sent two invoices showing valuable properties being rated with a zero value.
“This has been a long time scam in city where officials amend the valuation of properties so that the owners, sometimes large property funds, don’t pay rates,” she said.
One is a property in Bath Avenue, Rosebank, which is zero-rated yet has a credit amount of R1 478 million.
The other one is a property Horsfield used to own in Buccleuch, which shows its value as zero, but which is R221 000 in arrears. The city is sending the invoice to the incorrect email address so the current owner is not paying.
The bills are recent, reflecting the dates of August 4 and 5 2020, respectively.
Two years ago, then-mayor Herman Mashaba went on a blitz to find some of these property owners, who allegedly bribed city officials to change the property value. Many were receiving free water and electricity as they paid to get de-registered from the city’s system. This included an upmarket shopping centre in Bryanston.
City spokesperson Kgamanyane Stan Maphologela said the reviews had been undertaken using “an appointed service provider and all forensic audits had been done”.
“There is an additional service provider who has been appointed to review all revenue streams of the city and we are still waiting for final report on any challenges experienced on the ground.”
Maphologela confirmed the Rosebank property was owned by an investment company and was registered in 1990 but said it was being billed correctly.
Part of the problem with zero-valued properties could be where there were encroachments or notarial ties.
The city says it had over 42 000 business properties and over 900 000 parcels of land in total that appear in its general valuation roll.
In the meantime, the city said it had “escaped a total service delivery shutdown during the ongoing
Covid-19 pandemic mainly because of ratepayers who kept their municipal accounts up to date.”
City member of the mayoral committee for finance Jolidee Matongo said the city was able to stretch the revenue already collected prior to the pandemic to strike a balance between continued service delivery supply and demand on the “remaining shoe-string budget of the financial year that ended in June this year, and with a 30% staff capacity due to lockdown restrictions”.
“However, we barely managed to prolong the balancing act after recording a significant under collection of revenue of up to R2.9 billion during of lockdown,” he said.
Other city services such as credit control measures were deemed as non-essential and had to be suspended, and some budgets redirected to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on communities.
“One of the greatest impacts of Covid-19 included the financial devastation that saw many ratepayers unable to pay their municipal bills, while the municipality was also unable to pass the 2020/21 budget on time due to the lockdown.
“As a result, the continued supply of water and electricity, as well as waste collection services across Joburg communities was placed at risk,” he said.
Revenue collection was still at a low. There is a continuous risk and, therefore, the non-payment for municipal services poses a significant threat to the continuation of basic service delivery and exposes the city to increased water and power outages and interruptions. Pikitup may be forced to reduce waste collection frequency schedules in some areas in a bid to also cut costs.
To avert these repercussions, the city has had to resume revenue collection efforts which include full credit control measures.
This will see services being cut off for ratepayers with outstanding accounts who had not approached the municipality to enter into acknowledgement of debt or payment arrangements.
The Star