By Nangamso Mabindla
16 February 2004

BY not paying their municipal bills, the people of Buffalo City are hampering the city's ability to deliver on its responsibilities, says the city's communications officer Darby Gounden.

In an attempt to recover R400-million in unpaid rates and services owed to it by residents, Buffalo City Municipality has begun a programme of attaching houses of defaulters.

Gounden said the reason the municipality was auctioning defaulters' properties was to improve the municipality's core responsibility - service delivery to the people.

"If the municipality has a money shortage, we will not be able to fulfill our responsibilities to our paying citizens," she said, adding that the action was taken as a last resort.

According to a report in the Daily Dispatch, the municipality recently attached 24 houses. Of these, 20 escaped from going under the hammer and four were sold. Through the attachments and subsequent auctions as well as arrangements to pay debt, the municipality managed to recover R82 007, the newspaper said.

In an effort to encourage citizens to pay their bills on time, the municipality last year launched the "Pay 'n Win" campaign. By encouraging rather than forcing people to pay up, the municipality hopes to avoid having to initiate harsh action against defaulters.

"To prove our commitment to encourage our citizens to pay as opposed to forcing them, we are going to put Pay 'n Win flyers across Buffalo City to further encourage our citizens to pay their bills," Gounden said. "It pains us when we have to take drastic measures against our citizens. But we also feel the pressure to fulfill our commitment to ratepaying citizens and that comes first for the municipality."