Municipal services users in Johannesburg owe R15.6-billion - and the figure is rising.The culprits include residential and business customers as well as national and provincial government departments.In December the city approved a R4-billion write-off after it said it would be unable to recover the money.Yesterday the SA Local Government Association told parliament that municipalities across the country are owed R115-billion for services rendered.Salga called on the government to assist in recovering the money.As a result, about 27 municipalities are unable to pay their electricity bills and Eskom has threatened to cut them off.Joburg Metro's chief operations officer, Gerald Dumas, yesterday told the public accounts committee that customers whose debt was written off would have to take up prepaid meters and be moved to "extended social packages, where they [will] get a rebate".But Dumas assured the committee that the write-off did not include debt owed by national and provincial government departments."Impairment is done on the whole debtors book but no actual write-off was done on the national and provincial accounts during the year under review. Debts from national provincial customers are all recoverable but may be delayed due to budgetary constraints on their side," he said.Johannesburg, like many municipalities around the country, is feeling the effects of a weak economy and a citizenry left with very little disposable income.South Africa's GDP has been forecast to grow at 0.9%.To make matters worse in Johannesburg, the city's struggling bus company - Metrobus - lost R49.8-million in advertising revenue in a single year after it allowed a contract to lapse.Revenue declined to R905000 in the year ending June 2015 from R50.8-million the year before...