This comes as Moody’s last week announced that the metro’s rating dropped three notches, which comes in the wake of an impasse between the municipality and its water board, Bloem Water, owing to alleged failure by the metro to adhere to the agreed payment plan. Speaking to OFM News on Wednesday,  Dr Sethulego Matebesi  says while he admits that there may be financial problems in the municipality owing to low revenue collection from the metro’s residential and business debtors, he believes that the metro’s leadership are also adding to the problem by focusing more on their financial interests rather than the needs of the metro’s residents.

In the audio, Matebesi refers to an incident which recently made headlines whereby the family of a deceased EFF councillor who served the metro, received R100 000 towards the funeral, sparking much debate on whether or not councillors should have a pay-out of that kind upon their death, as they are already well-remunerated. This is also not the first time this matter comes up as earlier this year, the Democratic Alliance in the metro raised their concern with the family of a former councillor of the metro receiving R120 000 towards his funeral following his death in April this year.  

The opposition party’s Dulandi Leech said in an earlier statement that while she understands that the families of the deceased persons want to honour their loved ones with a decent burial, taxpayers should not have to pay for these funerals, especially considering the metro’s financial challenges among other matters paying its water bill to Bloem Water as well as collecting waste timeously. He also adds that while the metro’s recently appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) faces a mammoth task in turning the metro’s financial situation around, the onus is now on residents and businesses owing the money for services to the metro to pay these bills timeously, also on the metro’s leadership to start making better, more credible financial decisions.  

“There is hope with a few good-willed people around but it needs the intervention of the provincial government, even from the National Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), to intervene in some of these problems and not wait until the municipality has collapsed. Unfortunately, it seems as if some of the monitoring from higher structures doesn’t match the interventions that are needed because this is a dire situation,” he said. He further concludes that should the metro be further downgraded by the ratings agency, he predicts that it may take as long as between ten to fifteen years for the metro to recover financially.  

OFM News