What Households Pay For Rates, Lights, Water And Other Services In South Africa

THE South African Cities Network (SACN) has published its 2020 State of Cities Finance Report, showing the difficulty faced by the country’s main cities to balance their books.

Cities are operating in a difficult environment, with continued low economic growth and rising fiscal risk, but have still grown their revenues by an average of 5.7% per year, above operating expenditure growth of 5.5%.

The report looked at nine cities: Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane. Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, Mangaugn and Msunduzi.

It found that municipalities are battling to generate enough revenue to keep their levels of service up, and this has been heavily exasperated by the Covid-19 pandemic. “There is simply too little money to go around,” it said.

“There are also the challenges of collecting monies on behalf of the public, as many can’t from an affordability point of view or not willing. People are also in