CITY of Tshwane residents are threatening a rent boycott.
This is after the city failed to respond to a memorandum of grievances delivered to the municipality on 14 June.
Tshepo Mahlangu, chairman of Lotus Gardens, Atteridgeville and the Saulsville Civic Association (Lasca), said the city is defying them by not responding to their memorandum.
“They missed the 28 June and 7 July deadlines. We cannot continue to be abused by office bearers who are partisan. They now serve the interests of their political parties instead of the aggrieved residents of Tshwane," Mahlangu said.
One of the demands made by Lasca was the scrapping of the Tshwane Ya Tima campaign, which aims to improve revenue collection from residents by cutting off electricity to people who do not pay for it.
According to residents, however, the campaign targets poor people.
Lasca says the campaign attempted to make poor people compensate for money lost through corruption.
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Mahlangu said Lasca had asked the municipality to table a motion in council as soon as possible to have Tshwane Ya Tima scrapped.
He said they gave the Tshwane council speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana until the end of July 2023 to address the grievances in their memorandum or face a rent boycott.
“The final decision will depend on Ndzwanana. We believe he will protect his integrity by tabling the item during the council sitting at the end of July.
“The people of Tshwane are eagerly looking forward to receiving feedback from the Tshwane Municipality. Otherwise, we won't have any option than suspending rent payments until our demands are met," he said.
City of Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink said they are aggressively implementing the Tshwane Ya Tima campaign to improve revenue collection.
“We need a standard operating procedure that money owed to us comes through. That is about delivering values to our ratepayers and users of our services,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Water and Sanitation and Human Settlements has requested urgent action on Tshwane's lack of financial management.
The committee noted Tshwane's plans to improve its dire financial situation and emphasised the need for effective implementation.
The chairman of the committee, China Dodovu said: “We must be frank that the main challenge within the local sphere of government is the lack of appetite to implement effective consequence management, which then encourages a self-seeking culture of corruption and undermining of service delivery.”
