The Sunday News
Nozibelo Maphosa Sunday News Reporter
TSHOLOTSHO Rural District Council has called on residents within its jurisdiction to pay what they owe the local authority amid revelations that the local authority is owed over $600 000 by its township residents and businesspeople. In an interview with Sunday News, the RDC’s treasurer, Mr Khumbulani Hlabangana, said it was worrying that such a small community could owe such a figure. He said the huge debt was affecting the smooth provision of services by the council.
He said they recently introduced point of sale machines to encourage residents to pay and counter cash shortages.
“We introduced a card system this year in January and the residents were pleased about this system, this was a step towards ensuring that residents pay their dues. Residents who are using the card system will have deductions made to their council debts from their monthly contributions. We encourage people to pay any amount of money to the council so that their debts do not continue ballooning,” said Mr Hlabangana.
Mr Hlabangana said council was aware of the economic problems that were characterised by cash shortages but said most properties were rented out to tenants and most landlords were out of the country and tenants often default payment.
Tsholotsho RDC has also divided the township into five sections, with each section having its own section leader whose role is to go around his or her section educating residents on the importance of paying tariffs. The section leader also updates the residents on the council issues.
“The section leader and the rural district officials meet every fortnight to give an update on residents’ contribution. The section leaders also identify problems that residents are facing that stop them from paying. This has assisted very much because we noted an increase in the number of people who were paying. We noted that there was a need for people to appreciate the importance of paying council as this effectively improves service delivery,” said Mr Hlabangana.
Mr Hlabangana also said the computerised billing introduced in 2014 also made it easy for the council to identify people who were indebted to council.
“It has been easy to identify those who are in debt with the RDC since the introduction of the computerised billing system in 2014. However, we are urging people to own up and pay the council what they owe,” said Mr Hlabangana.
