About R91.2bn of the cumulative debt of R114bn that municipalities in South Africa were owed in 2016, is seen as unrecoverable debt, a report by Ntiyiso Consulting’s Municipal Revenue Conversion Strategies released on Tuesday said. The R22.8bn that is left of that amount is described as "reasonably recoverable". Out of the debt that is owed, the report indicates 65.5% is owed by households, 19% by businesses, 5.3% by organs of state, while 7.2% of the debt is from other sources. The report further revealed that most of municipal debt is older than 90 days. Ntiyiso Consulting, among other streams of information such as interviews with municipal officials, used data from national Treasury and Statistics South Africa. The report states there is a number of revenue inefficiencies and challenges that exist among municipalities, which include metering and billing slackness, suboptimal tariff strategies and a lack of engagement with customers at municipalities. The report makes it clear th...
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