The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has written to Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma inviting her to join the call to put unspent municipal taxes back in citizens’ hands during the ongoing state of disaster.
The power to implement these rebates rests with local, district and metropolitan municipalities, but the minister’s influence in favour of the proposal is considerable.
Legislation dating back to the early 2000s envisaged that in a state of disaster municipalities may rebate property rates taxes, putting cash back where it is needed urgently during crisis. Never in living memory has the case for applying a rebate on property rates and taxes been more urgent. This is true both when considering the massive increase in unspent municipal budgets due to the lockdown, as well as painful job losses and economic contraction due to lost business activity.
As the IRR said in its letter to Dlamini-Zuma; ‘The three-fold advantage of implementing the exemption envisaged by legislation passed by South Africa’s 2nd and 3rd democratic Parliaments respectively is that it will:
- boost household incomes, particularly for poor ratepayers;
- boost business survival rates – and hence job preservation – in both urban and rural areas, whether in formal, informal, industrial or residential precincts; and
- relieve municipalities of the burden of attempting to collect bad debts, which exist chiefly as nominal assets on municipal balance sheets, since, in reality, countless households and businesses teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.’
The IRR urged the minister to ‘issue guidance to South African municipalities to consider favourably citizens’ applications for exemptions’, and offered to ‘furnish any further information required and offer support in what should be a clear win-win for lives and livelihoods in this time of national disaster’.
The IRR is also channeling applications from ordinary citizens to their local municipal councillors to galvanize the good idea into tangible reality.
Says IRR head of campaigns Gabriel Crouse: ‘Municipalities that are unable to spend their budgets because of the lockdown and are unwilling to hand cash back to battling taxpayers are hoarding in the most callous fashion. Leaders like Dlamini-Zuma should bring them to task. But if leadership does not come from the top it will come from the ground floor, from proactive citizens, the ultimate and most potent force in municipal politics.’