City of Joburg exploring options for relief of ratepayers

The City of Joburg is looking at ways to give some relief to ratepayers including deferring their municipal accounts.

The City has experienced a shortfall in revenue collection as residents struggle to pay their municipal accounts due to the impact of COVID-19.

Joburg Finance MMC Jolidee Matongo says in April, the city had projected to collect R3.5 billion but had a shortfall of R800 million.

Matongo has encouraged those who are able to pay their rates to continue to pay.

“Just in the month of April, we have seen a shortfall in revenue collection. Going forward, we will not be able to collect the projected revenue due to the lockdown and people not being able to go to work. It will have an impact in the long term, but what we are currently looking at is that as we are unable to collect the money.”

“We’ll also have to cut on the expenditure that is not service delivery. Facing things like the cost of telephones within the city’s offices, things like employing new people, we are cutting down on those to ensure that there is a continuity of service delivery to the residents,” says Matongo.

In this video, government releases R9 billion for UIF

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[READ] As of today, the Department through the Unemployment Insurance Fund@UIFBenefits has disbursed almost R9.5-billion (R 9 474 081 937.26) through the COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) benefiting 1 937 558 workers. https://t.co/S1RTm6YoVM pic.twitter.com/orNdFCVc8O

— Department of Employment and Labour (@deptoflabour) May 7, 2020