Good Party Joins Litigation Against Unaffordable Cape Town Tariffs

GOOD Statement by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament: 

The City of Cape Town’s scheme linking tariffs to property values is illegal, unfair, and cloaked in lies about redistributive justice.  It is illegal because the Local Government Municipal Systems Act dictates that a municipality’s tariff policies must reflect the principle of usage. In other words, you pay for the services you receive.

It is unfair because it targets groups of people who simply cannot afford to pay, including those who have inherited property or whose property values have escalated exponentially due to gentrification or development.

And it is cloaked in lies because the true pro-poor elements of this budget, including free basic services and expanded sanitation provision, are not funded by cross-subsidisation from wealthy residents but through conditional grants from the National Treasury. The City received R4.7 billion in the form of its local government equitable share from national. Of this, the City has budgeted just R2.7 billion toward free basic services, a clear indication that the poorest residents are supported not by local generosity but by national allocation.

The major infrastructure projects (housing, transport and sanitation) that have been announced by the City during and immediately after the budgeting process are also largely funded by conditional grants from the national fiscus.

As an opposition party in the City of Cape Town, the GOOD Party seeks to hold the City accountable to the law and ratepayers from the opposition benches. Accountability becomes doubly crucial when a single party holds an outright majority in government, as decisions can be made without the moderating influence of opposition parties.

The judicial system doesn’t exist to settle political differences, but when majority parties use their numbers to railroad illegal and/or unconstitutional laws through the system, opposition parties have a duty to seek guidance from the courts.

GOOD has therefore applied to join the South African Property Owners Association’s action to stop the City’s tariffs, as a Friend of the Court, to assist the Court in understanding how the budget disproportionately burdens classes of ratepayers based on where they live.

To be clear, the GOOD Party believes progressive measures to redistribute wealth and narrow inequality in South Africa are essential for the development of a sustainable state. Cape Town’s efforts to position its tariffs as redistributive, while depending on the national fiscus to pay for free basic services, are not progressive and don’t accord with the basic redistributive principle that those who can afford to pay must do so.

In this instance, those who cannot afford to pay are effectively being told to sell up and move to a “poorer” area.

* In the previous three financial years, the City increased electricity tariffs way beyond those permitted by the national regulator. It has subsequently spent a fortune in taxpayers’ money defending its right to charge these higher tariffs in court (the matter is yet to be finalised). This year, the City made a big noise about reducing the electricity tariff while introducing its alternative scheme to raise more money.

GOOD International Relations: The party promotes positive international relations and cooperation.

Read More at the Source