The City of Tshwane will write off millions of rands owed by poor residents living in the capital. The city council adopted a report yesterday that recommended that the city write off R113-million in debt owed by people who have claimed they are unable to pay their municipal bills.Cities across the country are allowed to list households that cannot pay for basic services such as water and electricity. These households are then provided with a pre-determined amount of water and electricity.The write-off is only for the first quarter of the 2015-2016 financial year, which began in July.Member of the mayoral committee for housing and human settlements Joshua Ngonyama said providing free basic services to the poor was sustainable, and it was Tshwane's responsibility to help the poor."We are saying that we can't afford to allow the poorest of the poor to be strangled by debt. These are tough economic times."We are releasing these people out of debt and giving them prepaid meters for them to control their usage of the services," said Ngonyama.However, the Democratic Alliance proposed that the city must be able to alert people who are on the indigent list that they have exceeded their monthly limits."We allow a certain amount of water and electricity every month but there is no way for residents to know that they have reached their limit. We find that very few of our residents stay within the stipulated limit and then it gets added to their accounts," said DA councillor Kate Prinsloo."We feel there must be a mechanism, through an SMS or some other means, to alert people when they have exceeded their limit."She argued that this would make service provision more efficient and relieve poor people of debt burden...