Gauteng provincial government departments owe municipalities nearly R1-billion. The Gauteng portfolio committee on finance has revealed that provincial government departments are simply not paying their dues.The report, on the third quarter of the 2014-2015 financial year, showed that Gauteng provincial departments owed municipalities more than R889-million for property rates, water, electricity and other municipal services.Provincial departments have offices and buildings in various municipalities in the province. These buildings include schools, hospitals and clinics. Each building is billed by a municipality and the provincial government has to pay.Individual departments have to pay their own utility bills.Gauteng has three metropolitan municipalities, two district municipalities and seven local municipalities.In April the SA Local Government Association threatened to implement credit- control measures on all state departments that owed municipalities money.Nationally, government departments owe municipalities at least R5-billion. Salga's threats came just a day after the Treasury said it would withhold funding to 60 municipalities that between them owed Eskom billions of rands. This would lead to some municipalities diverting funds from salaries and service-delivery projects to pay Eskom bills.Finance MEC Barbara Creecy admitted to The Times that the non-payment was unacceptable."We have a moral responsibility as a provincial government to make sure we are not undermining the financial sustainability of another sphere of government," she said.Creecy said the system through which individual departments paid municipalities and resolved issues individually had ended."Departments are not allowed to use money budgeted for municipalities for anything else," she said. The Treasury has also established a debt-management committee to address non-payment to municipalities. In the committee each provincial department, treasury and municipalities will be represented.The committee will devise a payment plan for the provincial departments, enabling municipalities to get an idea of what money will be coming into their accounts on a monthly basis."We do not want a situation [in which] there are individual disputes between municipalities and departments about whether or not a current bill has been paid."The provincial treasury wants this committee to reconcile debt payments, set up payment plans and resolve disputes between departments and municipalities.BADLY RATEDSeven provincial departments owe the City of Johannesburg R412-million. Second on debt owed is Tshwane, where provincial departments owe a total of R185-million, while Ekurhuleni is owed R138-million.The only non-metro municipality with a large unpaid bill by provincial departments is the Emfuleni municipality at R109-million...