Minister denies genocide on farmers
MUNICIPALITIES owe nine water boards and one water trading entity R13.1 billion – an increase of R1.7bn from last November.
The water boards are owed R8.6bn and the water trading entity R4.5bn.
The municipal debt for water excludes the R17bn Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Zweli Mkhize said was owed to Eskom.
Speaking at a joint meeting of the water and sanitation portfolio committee and appropriations standing committee yesterday, the Water and Sanitation Department’s Paul Nel said of the R13.1bn owed, R9.2bn was in arrears for over 120 days.
Nel said the municipal debt had led to serious problems, especially for the water boards of Botshelo Water and Bushbuck Ridge Water that had been disestablished because of non-payment.
“Water boards alone are owed R8.6bn and in turn owe the department R4.5bn,” said, Nel.
He said when the municipalities did not pay, water boards could not refurbish the water service infrastructure.
“The department cannot maintain, rehabilitate and refurbish the infrastructure dams and deal with pollution due to non-payment by municipalities,” he added.
The Matjhabeng Municipality owed Sedibeng Water R2.4bn, Mangaung Municipality owed Bloem Water R672 million and Emfuleni Municipality owed Rand Water R638m.
According to Nel, many municipalities that were threatened with water restrictions last year made payments only in December 2017.
The DA’s Leon Basson blamed the non-payment on Cogta, which he said was not worried about the functioning and accountability of municipalities.
“If we can’t get Cogta to deal with municipalities that don’t pay, this exercise will not resolve our problems,” Basson said.
Yvonne Phosa, chairperson of the appropriations standing committee said savings from municipalities should also be considered instead of returning them to National Treasury.
She also said the sooner the debts were paid the better, as payment of accumulated interest was fruitless expenditure and wastage of money.
However, a National Treasury official said top-slicing municipal grants to pay debts was not permitted to fund operational matters.
He said long-term solutions were needed and that court cases were short term measures.
Water and Sanitation Minister Gugile Nkwinti said he would take a proposal on top-slicing municipal grants to pay debts to the inter-ministerial task team (IMTT) for consideration.
But, the South African Local Government Association (Salga) warned against top-slicing the equitable share of municipal debt.
“The discussion should be linked to the review funding of local government. If we exclude that, we may miss a number of things,” Salga Free State executive director, Zanoxolo Futhwa, said.
“We had attempted in 2015 to utilise this remedy in dealing with the challenge between municipalities and Eskom. It has resulted in unintended consequences, heightened interstate conflict and tensions – that is something we need to tread carefully towards,” Futhwa said.
He said Salga supported the fivepoint plan as recommended by the IMTT.
The plan, to form part of IMTT recommendations, entails installation of pre-paid metres, appointment of an independent revenue collector and a nation-wide campaign to encourage citizens to pay up as well as the government departments. POLICE Minister Bheki Cele has appealed to farmers to refrain from saying farm murders and attacks were racially motivated, adding that everyone is affected by crime in the country, including white farmers.
Cele appeared before Parliament’s portfolio committee on police yesterday, where he briefed the committee on the police’s rural safety strategy, which aims to address the ongoing violent crimes perpetrated against rural communities including on farms, as well as a high level of stock theft.
Cele said: “We have to see these murders as crime, not murder of white farmers. We must have South African voices and say it is wrong to talk about genocide.
“I think the figure we gave on the statistics was 62 farmers murdered out of 20 000 South Africans murdered. But (the number of) white farmers (murdered) is 62 and you hear people talk about genocide.
“Let’s be South Africans on these matters and fight these matters as such. When there are South Africans who are misrepresenting South Africa, we must all rise and say it is wrong and cannot be allowed.
“There is no genocide of farmers in South Africa; there is murder that we must all tackle,” said Cele.
In August, AfriForum went on the campaign trail in Australia where they spoke about white genocide in South Africa. AfriForum head of community safety Ian Cameron met with Australian MP and chairperson of the joint committee on intelligence and security Andrew Hastie, saying more pressure should be put on the South African government to stop farm murders and attacks.
However, Cele said murder should not be seen through a racial lens, but as crime against all South Africans.
“We do have this weakness of racialising farming issues. We will have to work hard to deracialise it.
“This thing of going to Australia and to Trump to say there is a genocide on the white farmers, it is not correct; it is murder, not genocide. If you go and talk about farm murders and put colour on it, it becomes a problem. It is not only white south Africans that die on farms,” said Cele.
FF Plus MP Pieter Groenewald had a go at Cele, defending AfriForum’s stance in Australia. He said the true number of farm murders was not that given by the police minister.
“If you go to the farming community, it is 100 per 100 000. If you need to identify a problem of a specific group, it’s not just the matter of 62 from 20 000.
“If you talk to the international community about the cruelty that is taking place in farm murders, people say that sounds like a genocide,” said Groenewald.