Close to 5000 of the eThekwini Municipality’s 25 000 workforce, including councillors and senior managers, have fallen behind in paying their municipal accounts.

This is according to a financial report of the municipality analysing consumer debt. Their debt has grown by close to R6 million in the last three months and is now standing at approximately R80m.Between January and March this year, the report indicates that staff debt increased from about R74m to R80m.

The challenges of defaulting employees have been an ongoing issue for the municipality. The Mercury reported last year on the extent of the problem, highlighting that senior managers, even those at executive levels, owed the municipalityfor rates and services.

These revelations come amid outrage by city ratepayers at the double-digit tariff increases that could be implemented in July, provided the city’s draft budget is approved. The budget is currently out for public comment.

The same report outlining the employee debt details ballooning consumer debt, showing that the current city debt is now at R35 billion, a staggering increase of more than R7bn from January 2024 to January 2025. It showed that 4988 employees owe an average of R78,044 561.81, a number that has risen from the previous month.

The report indicated that 54 councillors were in arrears in March; the same number was reported in February, while 52 were in arrears in January. However, the total debt has been growing over the same period.

In January, the councillors owed R1.8m, and this has now increased to R2m.The report said staff and councillors in arrears are subject to all credit control processes, including disconnections, redlining with credit bureaus, and legal processes.

Furthermore, staff members in arrears for more than 90 days are subject to salary deductions. Although this is an effective tool for collecting from staff in arrears, the salary deduction is limited to 25% of net salary, which is sometimes insufficient to cover the amount owed, hence the continuous increase in staff debtors.

IFP councillor Jonathan Annipen expressed concern that thousands of officials owe such a significant debt to the city.

“It is not unusual for employees to have their accounts in arrears, and there are by-laws that deal with these scenarios. It is a poor showing when the employees of the city fail to pay for their rates and services,” Annipen said.

“These are tight economic times, and everyone is facing difficulties. This should also speak to the tariffs that are coming in the next financial year, and maybe we ought to align ourselves not to increase those tariffs in light of the kind of scenarios we are seeing at the moment.” He said if Eskom offered electricity directly to consumers, they would pay much less.

Rory Macpherson, a DA member of the Finance Committee, said some of the employees have not paid their municipal accounts in months. The 5000 staff members in debt represent 20% of the city’s workforce.

“This is an unacceptably high number of employees; we have raised this as a concerning trend that some employees are bucking the system.

“There are some employees who are in arrears in excess of R20 000, R30 000,and sometimes R40 000, and some are senior managers earning hundreds of thousands a year. If you are earning a million rand a year and owe thousands of rand to the city, that is unacceptable,” he said.

The municipality requested 24 hours to respond to the questions sent by The Mercury on the matter.

THE MERCURY

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