Task team to tackle debt backlog

THE Nelson Mandela Bay municipality is putting its trust in a revenue collection task team in the hopes of improving its collection rate.

A report presented to the budget and treasury portfolio committee yesterday revealed that arrears debt in the municipality was sitting at a staggering R3.1-billion by the end of March.

Of the R3.1-billion, about R2-billion is owed by households, while R1-billion is owed by businesses. The government owes R100-million .

The debt dates back to July 2015.

Acting chief financial officer Jackson Ngcelwane said: “The extent of the arrears makes us struggle to sleep.

“Any strategy that can improve the situation must be supported.

“This strategy says that [executive directors and senior directors] should be working together to deal with this.”

The revenue collection committee will include executive directors from the departments of water, electricity, and other key stakeholders in the municipality.

Ngcelwane said it was critical for all relevant departments to be involved in the task team.

In his report, he wrote that debt threatened the city’s financial position as the average revenue collection rate was not where it should be.

“The key reasons for establishing a multidisciplinary revenue enhancement task team are born from the premise that some of the areas that are identified when unpacking the problems are more technical,” Ngcelwane wrote.

“Budget and treasury will not be able to fix an electricity meter that has not been recording readings for the past six months.

“If such continues unabated, that impacts to huge losses that are recorded continuously.”

Budget and treasury portfolio head Retief Odendaal called for urgent action to solve the ballooning overdue debt.

“The overdue consumer debt in respect of water is just escalating on a month-tomonth basis.

“It is the bulk of the increasing consumer debt.

“We are going to have to come up with a solution and somehow deal with that issue

“As we know the punitive tariff [on water usage] is imposed on us by the government but we have to come up with a solution because clearly this is not a sustainable situation,” Odendaal said.