Department of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs rejects DA's assumption that governments are refusing to pay for services
The Department of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs(CoGTA) would like to reject and dismiss as untrue and misleading statements made by the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mpumalanga that its (CoGTA) interventions to assist municipalities collect outstanding debts owed to municipalities by government departments has not yielded any positive results.
The project to assist municipalities in collecting outstanding debts from Government Departments as commissioned by the Executive Council during November 2010 was only for arrear accounts 60 days and older amounting to R 72 million. Of this amount R70,4 million was collected as at 31 January 2012. This represents a payment of more than 90%. It is therefore misleading and inaccurate for the DA to say that “very little arrears have been settled and it appears that departments are in no financial decision to do”.
The information which was provided to the legislature, on which a wrong assumption has been made by the DA, was on a request made by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to provide proof of the existence of a data base of how monthly bills are being monitored for government departments, not that there are no payments being made. It is therefore unfortunate that the information was used for the wrong purposes and grandstanding by the DA, without seeking clarity from the Department as this wrong misrepresentation of facts would have been cleared.
It is important to note that although Government departments are making payments on a monthly basis, new bills are being issued for the consumption of services for each month. There will always be a balance due to municipalities as these are all active accounts.
As part of supporting the municipalities to collect debts owed to them by government departments, a Debtors Committee has been set up in terms of section 64(3) and section 44 of the Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003 which obligates the Provincial Treasury and CoGTA to intervene and assist municipalities to recover government owed debts for services rendered for property and service charges. This committee has and continues to do good work in assisting the municipalities.
The Provincial Treasury, CoGTA and SALGA have developed a draft revenue enhancement strategy, which has been forwarded to all municipalities for their inputs and consideration. This strategy will further strengthen the municipalities’ efforts to increase their revenue collection.
The payment of services and the collection rate of
municipalities are very important for the sustainability of provision of
services by municipalities. We urge all community members to pay for their
services.
Contact Person:
Simphiwe Kunene
Cell: 082413 3931
Issued by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs
