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The Chris Hani District Municipality said it would write off R451 million in irrecoverable water and sanitation debt held in abeyance since 2017.
Municipality spokesperson, Buyelwa Ganyaza, said the CHDM Council decided on Wednesday to write off this "historical debt", adding that the abeyance amounts were now prescribed as per the Prescription Act 68 of 1969 as they are beyond three years.
"Writing off the prescribed debt will also assist towards the effective implementation of CHDM Credit Control, Debt Collection and Write-Off Policy as customers will not make historical claims against the Municipality by disputing the long outstanding debt," she said.
Ganyaza said CHDM took over the water services function from local councils in 2014 and had to deal with disputes on municipal accounts because there was no information relating to consumer debt which made it extremely difficult for the District Municipality to enforce account payment.
"Customers rejected the accuracy of these accounts. As a result, the District had to deal with customer discontent, dispute, and reluctance which was heavily in different parts of District as we could not enforce payment for customers to pay these historic debts without records," Ganyaza added.
The District Municipality says all consumers will now be compelled to service their current accounts and any outstanding debt that is generated outside the abeyance accounts.
