City of Johannesburg opposition councillors on Thursday were critical of several aspects of the R89.4 billion budget for the 2025/26 financial year, saying it ignored the crisis facing the municipality.

Finance MMC Margaret Arnolds tabled the budget, which she said was fully funded, and announced plans to get the country’s economic hub back on track.

DA shadow finance MMC Chris Santana said Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic heartbeat, is in crisis, and that systemic inefficiencies, misplaced priorities, and a lack of accountability have eroded its potential.

He said infrastructure lies in neglect, leaving the forgotten ratepayers and residents of Soweto, Orange Farm, Lenasia, Roodepoort, Randburg, Sandton, Alexandra, and Diepsloot to bear the burden of the city’s failure in delivery.

Santana added that the DA rejected the business-as-usual approach, which places undue strain on residents already grappling with economic hardships.

Instead, the DA has proposed a 0% increase in property rates, which reflects stagnant or declining property values due to infrastructure decay, 12.41% for electricity, 13.9% for water, 4.6% for sanitation linked to property rates for residential users, and refuse removal to balance affordability and service delivery.

On Wednesday, Arnolds announced a 12.5% increase in electricity, reflecting the approved tariff increase of 12.41%, which is passed through from Eskom.

In addition, water and wastewater charges will be up by 11.8%, which Arnolds said was underpinned by an average tariff increase capped at 13.9%, despite Rand Water’s 15.3% hike.

The municipality is also increasing refuse removal revenue by 6.4% while property rates, which are the city’s second-largest revenue stream, increase by 4.6%.

Santana said the City of Johannesburg should cap employee-related costs at 4.6% in line with inflation and dissolve non-performing municipal-owned entities’ boards to curb wasteful expenditure.

He also said councillors’ remuneration increases should be reduced to 3%, reflecting fiscal restraint.

Other proposals include maintaining debt impairment at 0% increase by enhancing revenue collection strategies, and also capping other losses at 0% by addressing technical and non-technical losses at City Power and Joburg Water.

Santana said on the basis of these interventions, the municipality would still end up with a surplus of R3.7bn before capital transfers and taxation.

“We reject the network capacity charge for customers not directly supplied by City Power for reliance on its network. This charge, ranging from R70 to R280.30, excluding value-added tax (VAT), requires clarity and public consultation to ensure fairness,” he said.

Arnolds indicated that the controversial prepaid electricity surcharge will remain unchanged at R200 (excluding VAT), which is a deliberate act to protect the poor against rising energy costs.

However, ActionSA councillor Lebo Modukanene said the R200 prepaid electricity surcharge is legalised extortion.

“This flat rate is legalised extortion, it is a poverty tax, it punishes pensioners in Moffatview Old Age Home, whose slips show half their grants spent on electricity,” she said.

Modukanene complained that the surcharge punishes the unemployed graduate trying to keep their phones charged, as well as backyard dwellers who never asked for it, but now are forced to pay it.

“We were told the poor are exempted through the ESP (expanded social package) programme, but that is not factual. Residents are struggling to access the system.

“We are not gathered here today to discuss numbers in a spreadsheet; we are here to discuss the soul of a city at the crossroads,” explained Modukanene.

She added: “We are told this is a people’s budget, but let us not be deceived, this is not a people’s budget, it is a political survival plan dressed in the language of the poor while punishing them in practice”.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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