‘Flawed’ roll upsets folks

THE Mthatha Ratepayers and Residents Association (MRRA) has called for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan’s intervention to avoid the implementation of a “flawed” valuation roll by the King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) Municipality.

KSD has started charging rates based on property values contained in the valuation roll of 2014. The association’s biggest grievance is the fact that the rates were backdated to July last year, meaning ratepayers owed the municipality thousands of rands in unpaid rates. According to the MRRA, this saw many ratepayers owing large amounts of money.

“KSD immediately started to cut water and electricity services for arrear rates. In our view, this is nothing other than the abuse of authority over a previously marginalised and disadvantaged local community,” read the association’s letter to Gordhan.

The tussle started after KSD municipality conducted a general valuation of properties at the beginning of last year, a process that was followed by wide public uproar. When the valuation roll was published, property owners discovered that the values of their properties had sky-rocketed, some more than double and others by three times the value.

This led to objections being lodged by more than 3 500 property owners who called on KSD to redo the general valuation as it was “flawed”.

KSD then decided to bill rates according to the old valuation roll, an action which was discouraged by the Cogta MEC Fikile Xasa.

In August this year, the KSD council took a resolution to implement the 2014 valuation roll without dealing with the objections lodged by property owners.

“We legitimately expected the municipality, its council and (Cogta) to investigate the allegedly flawed 2014 valuation process and the roll within a period between November last year and June this year , as we formally submitted our collective grievance to the KSD municipality and (Xasa) on behalf of Mthatha ratepayers,” the letter reads.

The association also requested Gordhan make a ruling on the implementation of the 2014 valuation roll. KSD spokesman Sonwabo Mampoza and Gordhan’s spokesman Dumisa Jele did not respond to questions by yesterday. —