Tshwane plans to write off R500m

Tshwane plans to write off over R520.6-million in debt.

This comes as the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs is pumping about R1-million into the city to help it get its finances in order.

Tshwane inherited the debt following the much-criticised merger of Metsweding district municipality, Kungwini local municipality and Nokeng Tsa Taemane local municipality into Tshwane in 2011.

According to a council document seen by The Times, Kungwini was responsible for most of the debt.

The municipality accounted for R405267825 of the debt while Nokeng Tsa Taemane accounted for the remaining R115367474.

The document, which lays bare the staggering debt, points to the lack of appreciation by city officials, provincial leaders as well as the national government of the magnitude of the financial burden the merger would have on Tshwane.

Only R20-million had been set aside for the merger.

"Following requests to the Gauteng Provincial Government, R20-million was allocated by the Gauteng department of local government and housing as part contribution for the additional costs incurred by the city," the document reveals.

The council document notes that "these two debtors books [Kungwini and Taemane] that were incorporated were never maintained in terms of regular posting of accounts and consistent billing, thus further increasing the cost of collection".

Since the merger in 2011, Tshwane has been plagued by billing problems.

Adriana Randall, DA councillor in Tshwane, yesterday said residents of the incorporated municipalities had inundated the city with billing queries because "for the last 12 months" Tshwane had been sending out "estimated" water meter readings instead of accurate readings as required by law.

Motsamai Motlhaolwa, spokesman for the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, said the Tshwane merger created a mammoth and costly task of reconciling the separate records from the different municipalities.

As part of the post-merger support, the department made available funds to add to the initiative the municipality had initiated.

Motlhaolwa said the "massive work [Tshwane] had to undertake to reconcile the different Revenue databases from the merged municipalities" had caused the department to intervene.