The Lotus Atteridgeville Saulsville Civic Association (Lasca) has warned that if the City of Tshwane does not crack down on councillors and staff who owe their own accounts, they might mobilise residents to boycott the payment of municipal accounts.
This comes after it emerged that 131 councillors and close to 9,000 municipal workers are in arrears on their own municipal accounts while they are urging residents to pay up.
According to a recent council report, the number of municipal staff in arrears jumped from 8,759 in July 2024 to 8,820 in July 2025, collectively owing a staggering R28.88 million.
The number of councillors in arrears rose from 121 to 131 in the same period, collectively owing R1.7 million.
Lasca leader Tshepo Mahlangu expressed concern that municipal workers and councillors tell residents to pay on time, but many of them are late on their own municipal accounts.
The organisation has been at the forefront of a campaign calling for the city to write off residents’ outstanding municipal bills, claiming that they are mostly inaccurate and fabricated.
Mahlangu said the fact that councillors and municipal workers are in arrears “exposes criminality that has been going on at the municipality for a long time.”
“We are vindicated as the residents’ organisation and that we are footing the wrong bills by paying the hefty municipal accounts. That is just sheer hypocrisy on their part, to be honest with you. We are told to pay but they are not paying,” he said.
He said Lasca would confront the executive mayor Nasiphi Moya and members of her mayoral committee, including the city manager Johann Mettler to seek answers on the city’s steps to recoup money owed by its employees.
“We are going to tell them that we are sick and tired of being bullied by footing the wrong bills. And, if they are not careful we might decide not to pay for the municipal services until they come clean on what it is that they are going to do with these R28.88 million owed by municipal workers,” he said.
He also noted that the debtors’ book is ballooning, now standing at almost R30 billion.
“People are impoverished and they know that because we have 600,000 indigents, but they are not paying whereas the majority of them are earning more than R40,000 per month. They are undermining the residents of Tshwane,” Mahlangu said.
Last week, the South African Municipal Workers Union blamed the non‑payment of salary hikes for municipal workers from 2021 for workers’ mounting municipal bills.
Regional union secretary Donald Monakisi said the outstanding 3.5% and 5.4% salary increases for 2021/22 and 2023/24, respectively, may be among the reasons many municipal workers fall behind on their water and electricity bills.
Municipal spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the number of councillors with municipal arrears grew from 121 to 131 “because additional accounts were linked to the respective councillors, not because of new debts.”
He added that the municipality has now rolled out salary‑deduction measures for all councillors and staff with outstanding debts, in line with its credit‑control and debt‑management policies.
He said when councillors default the case goes to the Speaker of Council for action.
Mashigo said that in line with the city’s credit‑control measures, salary deductions of up to 50 % of a councillor’s net salary are applied to recover the outstanding municipal amounts.
