GOOD Statement by Sandra Dickson, GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor:
The recent High Court ruling against the City of Cape Town’s property-value-based fixed charges exposed serious weaknesses in the City’s tariff and revenue model when they were found unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.
The Mayor is yet to announce whether his government will abide by this judgment and how it will deal with the tariffs already collected unlawfully.
In the meantime, an analysis of 4 likely bills under the current Draft Budget, for residential properties valued at R1m, R3m, R5m and R7.5m already shows that if the tariff structure is not adjusted by the City’s leadership, then nearly every ratepaying resident will see an increase in their property rates. Thus, the Mayor’s claim that 60% of ratepayers will not see an increase is dishonest.
Virtually all ratepayers will see an increase in their bills.
That claim was already questionable on the City’s own numbers and clearly illustrated in the 4 examples presented here.
Now the court ruling puts Hill-Lewis under even more pressure.
If the City implements the judgment and loses revenue from unlawful tariff components, it will have to recover that money from somewhere.
One obvious pressure point is the 10.2% reduction in the rate-in-the-rand promised under the current 2026/27 Draft Budget.
If that reduction is removed or reduced to make up for lost revenue:
- More households will pay more; and
- The rates burden shifts even further onto homeowners.
The same uncertainty now hangs over the cleaning charge, which the Court found to be a hidden rates tax.
Hill-Lewis may now have to:
- Redesign the cleaning charge
- Shift that cost into another tariff
- Recover that revenue elsewhere in the bill
- Increase pressure on property rates to close the gap.
In every scenario, someone pays.
The City must raise the revenue required to provide basic services equitably.
However, where the City has over-borrowed to the extent that the revenue demands to service that debt are objectively unaffordable for most residents, the City needs to look internally to cut superfluous projects, costs and waste.
The convoluted tariff scheme of reducing the rate in the Rand for property rates, introducing new property values just three years after the previous general valuation, and pretending city-wide cleaning can be recovered by a tariff rather than covered by rates, was clearly done to massage numbers ahead of an election.
If he persists with this smoke-and-mirrors budget, we will all pay the price for a City that is for the super-rich only.
GOOD Tourism Development: The party aims to boost the tourism sector as a key economic driver.
Beetle King
The sole purpose of your center name is so you know when you are in real trouble with your mother
Tall Sally
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”