LETTER: Ratepayers of SA unite

I am 76 and my husband is 85. We exist, only just, on the smallest of pensions. Yes, we own the house in Johannesburg we bought when we were both working back in 1983. Today, sadly, it is shabby and rundown despite our best efforts to make it look presentable. In this buyers’ market it is difficult to get a reasonable offer that might enable us to move somewhere smaller.

Until recently we were the grateful beneficiaries of old age pensioner municipal rates, which were a godsend. But this month we received a demand for R10,000 for rates. That is more than my husband and I receive as income each month, which means we will be unable to pay.

We are told simply to pay and we may get a rebate/refund in a few months. But we cannot pay. This means that the City of Johannesburg will cut off all services. This won’t help them get the money, but it will reduce our barely tolerable existence to one of abjectness.

There are presumably others, perhaps many, in the same desperate situation. Ratepayers in other parts of SA who are similarly affected are joining together to fight these totally unjust and unreasonable increases.

Are we as citizens of Joburg getting value in terms of services from the City of Joburg? No. Services are collapsing all around us. Have we not in our great city similarly inspired citizens who can organise and call all ratepayers to arms to defy these utterly arbitrary and punitive rates increases? 

PP Durnford
Orchards

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