By Nangamso Mabindla
21 June 2006

BUFFALO City Mayor Zintle Peter has urged the city's businesses to settle outstanding moneys owed to the municipality for rates and services.

Peter made the call when she officially opened the City's revamped credit control offices at the Munifin Centre in East London on Tuesday, 20 June. This is part of the department of provincial and local government's Project Consolidate initiative aimed at increasing the speed of service delivery.

Project Consolidate is a two-year pilot programme that will enable the national government to help local governments deal with challenges in a hands-on way.

Referring to the money owed to the City by its citizens and businesses, Peter said: "Our City is legally required to collect outstanding money and I would want our administration to make every effort to collect the more than R300-million outstanding."

Peter said that one of the main reasons the City was owed a lot of money was its high unemployment rate and poverty. "I am, however, shocked to note that businesses are also climbing on the bandwagon by not paying their accounts. That is why I want to plead with them to work with us and pay up," she added

Another contributor to the City's challenges was the municipality's billing system. Peter said this needed to be tackled if Buffalo City was to recover money owed by its citizens.

"Last week I went to Nompumelelo and was embarrassed to hear that people who did not have an electricity service were already receiving bills. On being questioned, I found out from an official that it was a mistake," said Peter. "People's names were on the housing list and they were automatically charged though they had not yet received a service."

She thanked department of provincial and local government for its assistance, saying she hoped the new credit control facility would help clean up the existing billing system.

Project Consolidate service delivery facilitator, Pumeza Lujabe, commended the City for working with her to set up the improved credit control facility.

"People who come here with their problems will now have a sense of confidentiality as this new facility affords them a chance to have a one on one interaction with a municipal employee," she said.

"We are looking to revamp the Munifin Centre as well so that municipal offices are more welcoming to the consumers," she added. "But we are still negotiating with Old Mutual properties to look at best ways to revamp the Munifin."