\n \t\t\t \t\t\t
![\"NM](\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/5bec7_1241724705.jpg\")
<\/p>\n \t
\n \t\t\t \t\t\t <\/p>\n
\n
Durban City Hall, the administrative seat of the eThekwini municipality.<\/p>\n
\n
\t\t \t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t \t\t <\/p>\n
Hard-pressed Durban ratepayers owe the eThekwini municipality R1.9 billion in unpaid rates as of June 2012. <\/p>\n
Homeowners and business owners are struggling to cope with increases in rates and the cost of living \u2013 with businesses owing R417 million or 21 percent of the total outstanding amount. <\/p>\n
Durban Chamber of Commerce CEO Andrew Layman said the impact of last year\u2019s July 1 rates increase might have been a factor in businesses defaulting as they budgeted to meet expenses. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf the values of their pro-perties were steeply increased, and the rates bill was then unexpectedly large, in some cases more than double what they paid before, they may not have the cash to pay,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The size of the outstanding debt was \u201cextremely worrying\u201d as the city could not afford to be without this income, even if it was temporary, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cMunicipalities also need cash and they, too, can suffer cash-flow difficulties. Unfortunately, we all bear the costs involved in late or non-payment.\u201d <\/p>\n
The biggest debtors were government departments, which owed the city R410m. The Ingonyama Trust, which owns 3 million hectares, or |32 percent of all land in the province, owes R285m. <\/p>\n
King Goodwill Zwelithini is the chairman of the trust, which consists of traditional land including the major townships of Umlazi, KwaMashu and Inanda. The trust is in a legal dispute with the municipality over whether it is required to pay rates. <\/p>\n
Despite these battles, it has emerged that Durban now charges the highest rates in the country \u2013 more than Joburg and Cape Town. <\/p>\n
City authorities say this is an \u201cunfair comparison\u201d. Municipal revenue deputy head Peet du Plessis said that overall, Durban residents paid far less for municipal services compared to Joburg and Cape Town. The National Treasury had done a comparison of the cost of services in all metros. <\/p>\n
In 2012\/13, based on \u201cthe affordable income group\u201d, costs came to R1 179.40 for an average household bill per month in Durban. In Cape Town, this |was R1 329.89 a month and in Joburg residents were paying R1180.48 on average a month. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe full basket of goods and services is deemed to be a better comparison than just rates alone, as the costs of the various services across municipalities differs,\u201d Du Plessis said. The number of properties differed across municipalities. Joburg had about 950 000 properties, Cape Town had just over 1 million properties and Durban had 509 830 properties. <\/p>\n
\u201cJoburg and Cape Town have more properties on their roll than Durban and their average property value is much higher than that of Durban,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Du Plessis also said Durban had the highest unemployment rate compared to the other two metros, so \u201cour cross-subsidy level is higher\u201d. <\/p>\n
Lilian Develing, of the Combined Ratepayers\u2019 Association, questioned how the city had allowed the debt to grow to R1.97bn. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people are being overcharged, so the city really needs to recalculate their figures. But if the amount is accurate, the city\u2019s credit control policy should have never allowed that to happen,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Wakefields estate agents spokeswoman Lesley van Duffelen said there seemed to be no valid reason why Durban\u2019s \u201crate in the rand\u201d (R0.00914) should be higher than Cape Town\u2019s (R0.005613) or Joburg\u2019s (R0.004). <\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering that people earn a lot more in Johannesburg and a little more in Cape Town\u2026 and that the cost of living is not that much higher, it makes the effect of the rand rate in eThekwini harsher,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Durban City Hall, the administrative seat of the eThekwini municipality. Hard-pressed Durban ratepayers owe the eThekwini municipality R1.9 billion in unpaid rates as of June 2012. Homeowners and business owners are struggling to cope with increases in rates and the cost of living \u2013 with businesses owing R417 million or 21 percent of the total […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-14213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}