Proposed rates, tariff charges spark debate in Tshwane council

The Tshwane metro’s draft budget for the 2025/26 financial year has sparked debate among opposition parties over the proposed rates and tariffs.

While the metro emphasised its efforts to align increases with inflation and mitigate the impact of rising costs from Eskom and Rand Water, opposition parties have raised doubts about affordability and the burden placed on residents.

The budget, tabled for public consultation, introduces a series of tariff adjustments aimed at ensuring the financial sustainability of the metro while addressing the pressure from utility providers.

The proposed tariff adjustments include:

– a 4% reduction in property rates,
– 13% increase in water (lower than Rand Water’s 15.3%),
– 12% increase in electricity (lower than Eskom’s 12.74% increase),
– 6% increase in sanitation,
– 4.6% increase in refuse removal, and
– the introduction of a new fixed charge of R185 per month for residents using private refuse collection services.

Jacqui Uys, DA Tshwane spokesperson on Finance, said the DA-led coalition launched an audit to ensure that all properties that have bins lifted by Tshwane are billed for cleaning levy service.

By the end of June last year, there were good results from this audit ensuring an increase in revenue generation.

“This progress has regressed during the ANC administration. If the city only continued this work of fixing the administration of billing, they could have avoided imposing a new tax.

“The DA rejects the implementation of this new tax.

“We would like to thank the Mayor for adhering to the calls of the DA and amending the draft budget to push back the implementation of a set network charge for electricity,” said Uys.

“Affordable electricity is needed for economic growth,” she added.

Uys said while the Mayoral Charter for Financial Rescue, as adopted by the DA-led administration, is still valid and not rescinded, the DA noted in the budget that there is an absence of political will to do the work as stipulated in the charter.

“This can be seen by the reduction of funding to prepaid meters, a method to ensure that residents can better plan their electricity spending and a tool to assist the city in revenue collection.

“We also see less funding allocated towards debt collection. This is of particular concern as this proposed funded budget relies on a 92.8% collection rate, while the city currently only averages at 89-90% collection.”

She said in the proposed budget the plan is to fund the likely shortfall in cash collections with the increase of property tax brought on by the new valuation roll.

“We noted that the budget does try to compensate for the property valuation increase brought by the new valuation roll, but we maintain that the proposed decrease in rates ratio will not compensate for the high increases. Residents will still see a high increase in the amount demanded from them monthly.

“To relieve this adverse impact on the pockets of consumers, the DA proposes that the portion of residential properties that are not subjected to property rates is increased from baseline R150 000 to R450 000.”

According to Uys, this is closer to the norm implemented by other metros and will bring relief to Tshwane consumers.

While the proposed 4% reduction in property rates has been positioned as a relief measure to counter the increased property values in the new General Valuation Roll, opposition parties argued that it does little to offset the broader increases in utilities.

Some have criticised the reduction as insufficient to cushion the financial blow on property owners, particularly when other service tariffs are on the rise.

FF Plus spokesperson Peter Meijer said a decrease in rates doesn’t mean a decrease in tariffs, it’s a method that is used to determine which are to be paid.

“Given the fact that we are entering a new evaluation roll, the rates will increase despite the decrease in tariffs,” said Meijer.

GOOD spokesperson Sarah Mabotsa said for the last five years, the metro has been tabling budgets it couldn’t afford.

Mabotsa said that by tabling unfunded budgets, the former DA-led administration was committing the capital city to spending more money than it had.

“We intend to save money by reducing some contractor services and propose a 5% overall reduction in spending on contractor costs.

“In approaching the rates and tariffs for 2025/26, the metro has done everything possible to minimise the impact of the increases from both Eskom and Rand Water,” said Mabotsa.

She said the proposed increases in water and electricity charges are lower than the increases that Eskom and Rand Water are implementing.

“The draft budget also proposes a reduction in property rates by 4% and further savings for residents through an additional R100 000 in property value zero rating that has been added, making the first R250 000 of a property’s value zero-rated in terms of rates.

“The deemed indigent threshold for home values has also been revised upwards from R150 000 to R250 000. This is a key step to broadening access to relief and ensuring that very low-income households can receive essential basic service support.”

Tshwane mayor Nasiphi Moya said the draft budget is aimed at supporting vulnerable households.

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