Many residents have lost faith in their municipalities: Ramaphosa

Ramaphosa was addressing the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) conference in Cape Town.

He says to date more than 30 municipalities have been placed under administration.

"This dysfunction is rooted in poor governance, weak institutional capacity, poor financial management, corruption, and political instability. Many residents have lost faith in the ability of local government to meet their needs. So too have many investors.

"To take just one example, in June last year, the dairy group Clover closed the country’s largest cheese factory in North West, citing ongoing challenges with water, electricity and road infrastructure. Clover is just one of several companies that have been affected by poor service delivery, forcing them to move their operations elsewhere and depriving needy parts of our country of investment and employment opportunities. The challenges in municipalities do not only affect the lives of communities."

Ramaphosa has urged municipalities to continue collecting revenue from defaulting customers.

"To deliver on their responsibilities, municipalities must address poor revenue collection. Municipalities are owed billions by businesses, government entities and households for services rendered. In line with the campaign led by the Deputy President known as Responsible Citizenry, we must urge consumers of municipal services to pay for what they receive."

"We should encourage good citizenship and promote a culture of payment for services. This conference should make a call to all who use municipal services – beginning with government entities – to lead by example and ensure that their municipal accounts are paid."

Since the start of a revenue collection campaign by the City of Tshwane last month, the municipality says it has collected over R500 million from defaulting customers which included government departments and big businesses.

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