The City of Johannesburg has for the first time in history collected a record of R3.6 billion for rates and service charges for the month of August 2018.
This constitutes collection of R400 million more than the budgeted revenue.
Over the past four months there has been sustained improvement in the City’s billing and collections with average monthly collections of R3.3billion from May to August.
The past administration’s highest average monthly collection reached R2,8 billion by comparison.
The City says this performance was made possible due to the implementation of a focused, multi-disciplinary approach to billing and collection management, under the leadership of MMC for Finance, Cllr Funzela Ngobeni.
The City also said it remained focused on targeting those who have not paid for rates and services, whilst clearly having the means to have done so.
The success of Operation Buya Mthetho in this regard has been excellent, collecting over R707 million over the past 7 months. Further to this, the City has tackled its debtors book, which stood at over R18 billion, and this is now producing results. The City has also focused its credit management work on the largest power and water users, which ensures a higher return of revenue for these efforts.
Mayor Mashaba said, “These efforts are critical to ensure that law-abiding residents, who pay their bills routinely, are treated with respect while the City focusses its efforts on those who can but do not pay. It can never happen again that those who pay are pushed further and further while so many people who can pay simply do not.”
The City has previously communicated its arrangement that residents who have objected to their property valuations, should continue to pay their previous rates amount along with the current service charges. This means that the record revenue levels over the past months will not come down as objections are resolved.
The City also said the fact that it had achieved consistent growth in revenue over the past 4 months bodes well for an adjustments budget which can see more being funneled into critical service delivery needs in communities.
Source: City of Johannesburg
Link: https://joburg.org.za/media_/newsroom/pages/2018%20news%20articles/city-strengthens-financial-position.aspx
