EDITORIAL: Ekurhuleni debt write-off is a very bad idea

The ANC is riding a tiger with its proposal to write off more than R20bn Ekurhuleni residents owe in unpaid rates and taxes. It is clearly a bid to curry favour with the Gauteng electorate in the build-up to 2024’s provincial elections, but the party needs to consider the longer-term consequences of such expediency.

Populist policies were always going to be tempting given the series of opinion polls indicating that the ANC is likely to lose its ability to govern Gauteng without a coalition partner, as it already has in Ekurhuleni and other metros in the province. However, it is incumbent on the party’s national leadership to intervene when such decisions have wider implications, for both the ANC and SA. 

Buying votes at the expense of the financial sustainability of an entire city is reckless in the extreme. A culture of nonpayment for municipal services is already entrenched in many parts of the country; rewarding nonpayment in Ekurhuleni risks turning a stubbornly resistant disease into an uncontrollable pandemic of entitlement, in Gauteng in particular.

Free basic services for the poor and support for indigent residents are a moral imperative, but as hard as the times may be, those who can afford to pay must do so or accept that they cannot enjoy the benefits of municipal services. The ANC will have only itself to blame if it gets mauled by the Gauteng electorate in the wake of their cities’ collapse.