Municipality goes door-to-door to collect debts
The Moqhaka local municipality in the Free State yesterday embarked on Operation Patala, which would see them increase their efforts to recuperate the money owed to the municipality by residents.
Moqhaka is a municipality in the Fezile Dabi District and encompasses Kroonstad, Viljoenskroon and surrounding towns.
The campaign will see its Mayor, Lucky Phooko, visit residents at their homes to discuss their water and electricity bills, and find amicable solutions to the settlement of these bills.
The municipality is among the Free State municipalities listed in the latest auditor-general report as being in need of urgent intervention.
This as Free State municipalities continue to regress on their audit outcomes with none of them having managed to obtain a clean audit in the past fiscal year.
Phooko confirmed the non-payment of services by government entities, businesses and households hampered the municipality’s ability to carry out its mandate and provide adequate services to communities.
Phooko said in order for the municipality to deliver much-needed services such as road maintenance, refuse collection, eradication of illegal dumping sites, water provision and others, they needed their financial position to improve.
“I am embarking on this doorto-door campaign so that I can explain to residents the importance of paying for services and settling their bills,” he said.
“We have drawn a recovery plan to turn around the financial situation of the municipality, but this plan can only materialise if the municipality gets money to do what is supposed to be done”.
He said the municipality was in the process of purchasing a new fleet of vehicles to enhance service delivery. – OFM News