Photo: Daily Maverick
Faizel Patel – 14/07/2020
The City of Johannesburg’s new tariff increases which were reduced from the original proposed percentages to cushion residents from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent national lockdown is set to take effect from Tuesday, 14 July.
The enforcement of the new tariffs comes after the Johannesburg Council recently approved the metropolitan’s 2020/21 Budget, Tariffs and the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) following a delay in the approval of the budget.
The City took a decision to reduce the initially proposed property rate from 4.9% to 4%, the water tariff dropped from a proposed 8.6% to 6.6 and the proposed 8.10% increase or electricity has been reduced to 6.23%.
Meanwhile, the City also took a decision to withdraw the proposed fixed charges of R200 for residential pre-paid electricity and the R400 for commercial.
In a statement, the city says the recent budget approval delay resulted in the billing system being briefly suspended for rebooting to launch a new financial year with the updated tariffs.
It says the delayed system transition into a new financial year, which falls within the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown saw billing only commence two working days after the Johannesburg Council’s approvals.
“Therefore, ratepayers are advised that billing for the month of July will subsequently be delayed, and no penalties will be imposed on ratepayers in this regard. The pretermination of service notices that were issued since the beginning of the lockdown will also not be executed in-line with the Covid-19 regulations not to cut off municipal services during the period.”
The city has further appealed to ratepayers who may be struggling to meet their financial obligations that may include payment of municipal accounts to contact the municipality’s Credit Control Department for assistance with suitable relief measures to ensure their accounts remain up to date.
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