Councillors and employees of the Chris Hani District Municipality who are in arrears for water and sanitation have had their salaries docked.
In total, residents and businesses owe the municipality R1.5bn and it is moving to recoup the money.
This was revealed during a virtual council meeting on Wednesday.
The combined total arrears for water and sanitation of 63 municipal employees and councillors is R529,421.
One employee owes R72,000 and the municipality has moved to deduct R1,500 monthly to settle the bill.
Meanwhile, the councillor with the highest arrears, a member of an opposition party, has an outstanding bill of R68,340 and has not made a single payment since 2014.
A final letter of demand was issued to the councillor in January.
Since April, the municipality has been deducting a total of about R60,000 a month from its employees and councillors.
Three more councillors have made arrangements with the municipality to repay their debt.
However, one councillor has disputed his municipal account and has taken the municipality to court.
The total of R1.5bn owed to the municipality is a 29% decrease from the R2.1bn owed in May.
Presenting a report, Chris Hani’s audit committee chair, Ananiah Mangisi Langa, said the bulk of the reduced debt should be attributed to write-offs that were processed in June and to payments by government departments.
He said though the municipality still had difficulty collecting from consumers and government departments, it commended some of the councillors and municipal employees for paying.
“We note that there are arrangements with the employees, they are paying ... The amount by one councillor has not yet been resolved and we’ve noted the speaker has been talking of that matter.”
However, the municipality is adamant that the councillor must pay the outstanding debt or provide sufficient evidence to prove his case.
In June, the municipality launched a disconnection programme targeting businesses and government departments which were in arrears.
The report revealed that by the end of June, households owed the municipality R1.1bn, which dwarfs the R172m owed by businesses and R141m by government departments.
Household debt decreased from R1.8bn in May due to the debt impairments issued by the municipality for households with old debt with no prospects of recovery.
“The municipality has a culture of non-paying consumers and the historical challenges relating to disputes of accounts relating to water consumption by consumers.
“The municipality has encountered challenges in its disconnect programme, with legal challenges from customers and long unresolved billing queries due to faulty meters, among others,” the report said.
By the end of the 2023/2024 financial year (June), the municipality had spent R29m on fuel, overspending by R1.7m on the initially budgeted for amount of R27.94m.
This led to the municipality placing limits on the use of all council vehicles from the beginning of July.
During the sitting, Chris Hani mayor Lusanda Sizani urged councillors to be cautious when using municipal vehicles.
“We need to practise and make sure that in fuel we don’t spend much — at least things that are not reasonable let’s avoid it so that all of us avoid overspending on fuel.
“We need less expenditure compared to previous quarters. We must make sure we implement cost- containment measures.”
Xhalanga Civic’s Bulelani Bunyonyo said poor revenue collection was compounding the municipality’s problems.
“They are using too much fuel. They can’t even manage their expenditure,” he said.
“Any business that cannot collect money according to the expected norms, that business is not financially viable.
“The norm by the National Treasury says you must collect 95%; they [have] been collecting 12% and now it’s down to 7%.
“Instead of improving, they are getting [worse]. This tells you [they] won’t be able to pay the R14m owed to their creditors,” Bunyonyo said.
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