adminSukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
MANGWE Rural District Council is struggling with service delivery as it has only managed to collect 10 percent of this year’s projected revenue.In a report for the first quarter, the local authority’s Chief Executive Officer, Nketha Mangoye Dlamini, said farmers and miners were resisting paying rates.
He said the local authority was still far from meeting their service delivery requirements for the first quarter.
“We have started this year on a bad note as the debtors levels continue to rise. At the end of last year, we were owed $429,327.90 and by March this year, the figure had risen to $975,226.90.
“This has led to an increase in creditor’s levels which are standing at $391,870.70 as the funds we are collecting cannot allow us to pay them off. Of the $2,141,680.06 which council expects this year, we have collected 10 percent of this which has made it difficult for council to operate so far,” said Dlamini.
He said some of their creditors were now taking legal action against them over outstanding balances from the year 2011.
He added: “We are getting a lot of resistance from farmers and miners. A third of last year’s outstanding balance is by farmers as they had an outstanding $178,905 and to date they have only paid $26,498.47.
“Farmers and miners have not paid anything to the council since the start of the year.”
Dlamini said the local authority was struggling to make follow ups on miners as they did not have a conclusive database on them.
A number of miners are operating in the area illegally. Farmers and miners recently pointed out that the taxes charged by the local authority were high which also explains their reluctance to pay.
Dlamini also said slow progress in pegging stands made it difficult for the local authority to raise funds.
“There are a lot of delays in pegging of stands by the department of physical planning which is making it difficult for council to advertise and sell stands. The conservation department is also not functioning properly as it does not have anyone heading it.
“It only has one staff member who is also the head of the roads department. Therefore we have realised the need to come up with stern measures on defaulters,” said Dlamini.
The local authority is also facing a revenue collection crisis as some farmers are selling their cattle directly to private buyers for better income and not at cattle sales organised by the council.
Local authorities normally organise cattle sales and they get a percentage of the sales to raise income.
Dlamini said they were working towards setting up a debt collection unit to facilitate collection of revenue from debtors who comprised farmers, miners, Ingwizi rate payers and private cattle buyers.
derick.khumalo