City of Joburg Cuts Sandton Mall Services Due to R158m Unpaid Municipal Bill: "Ayeye"

• The opulent and trendy Sandton City was targeted for its hefty unpaid municipal bill as part of the City of Joburg's #OperationBuyaMthetho
• During the operation by City officials on Wednesday, businesses, including the popular Sandton City Mall, had services disconnected
• According to the City of Joburg, Sandton accounts for R158 million of the R38 billion in unpaid municipal debt in Johannesburg

JOHANNESBURG - The long arm of the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) has caught up to Africa's richest square mile as the Gauteng government's Operation Buya Mthetho went full steam ahead on Wednesday.

Officials from various CoJ departments, including Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg Mpho Phalatse, descended on the opulent locale of Sandton as part of a widescale revenue-collection campaign.

The popular Sandton Mall was among the targets of the operation as the area struggles to foot its R158 million municipal debt. This saw the electricity and water supply at the mall being disconnected.

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Briefly News previously reported that the City of Tshwane has been on the same boisterous campaign in the past two weeks, seeing various businesses, government-owned parastatals and embassies being left in the dark.

Debt has reached epic proportions

According to a TimesLIVE report, CoJ aims to claw back on a municipal services bill of almost R40 billion. It has since emerged that Sandton, with the lion's share of the debt, was the City's biggest culprit in this regard.

Amid the wave of service disruptions, Phalatse said she was unapologetic about her vision of building a well-run, safe and economically-friendly city. To achieve this, the mayor said swift action ought to follow to ensure institutions that are indebted to the municipality are brought to book.

"The City's 13 municipal entities are responsible for delivering efficient services to residents and at a reasonable cost. But without the necessary funding, the City will struggle to satisfy its service delivery commitments.

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"The termination of services should not come as any surprise to the municipal account holders, who received notices that warned them about their debts and the planned cuts," said Phalatse.

News24 reported that among the other customers that were targeted was the SA Local Authorities (SALA) Pension Fund offices in Sandown, which is R7.4 million behind on its rates bill, among others.

Officials, compromising a group from City Power and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department, then made their way to the Sandown Village Office Park, which is behind by R660 000 on its water bill.

The group also made a scheduled stop at DJA Aviation (Pty) Ltd in up-market Bryanston, where due to a R952 000 bill, the water and electricity supply was disconnected.

Locals add their voices

Observant social media users gave CoJ officials a big thumbs up for the initiative to claw back on the debt, which has been building up for many years. Briefly News brings readers all the comments below.

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@Justice Themba Mhlongo wrote:

"I love what they doing, they start with businesses, govt departments and suburbs, this help to avoid those who love to hide behind racism when accountability is demanded since JHB metro and Tshwane are under DA."

@Moreshka Lebona said:

"I hate to say it but DA is showing leadership. I don't understand why under ANC they left debts to balloon out of control like this? Is it they wanted to mask their looting."

@Siboleke Silevu added:

"DA is in a malicious mission masquerading as collection of 'revenue'!!! I don't promote a culture of nonpayment of services but DA selective application of this is glaring!!!"

Gautrain refutes R10m water and lights bill

Elsewhere, Briefly News recently reported that Gautrain services were nearly brought to a grinding halt on Tuesday as the City of Tshwane continued its rampant charge on customers that are behind on bill payments.

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The City's no-nonsense stance comes in the face of a staggering bill of no less than R17 billion owed by residents, businesses, the government and even foreign embassies.

Sticking to their guns, municipality officials descended on the Hatfield station to remind the company of an amount of R10 million that is reportedly outstanding on their water and lights account, TimesLIVE reported.

"Without giving us so much as a notice, the City disconnected the water and electricity supply to the station. The municipality is claiming it was owed [millions] for services," said Gautrain spokesperson Kesagee Nayager.

Source: Briefly News