The City of Cape Town (CoCT) has been offering a debt write-off incentive of approximately R4,1 billion to qualifying debtors, to improve the culture of payment as well as assisting struggling debtors who have historic debt older than three years.
To date, approximately R1,9 billion in debt has been written off to assist the City’s customers and there is still R1,8 billion in debt that is older than three years, which could potentially be written off when customers enter into payment arrangements.
The city said the debt write-off incentive action was taken due to the continued impact of Covid-19 on lives and livelihoods and the much slower than expected economic recovery over the past year.
“The City’s latest payment ratio is approximately 98% which shows that the majority of residents and businesses are paying their municipal accounts and we thank them sincerely for this. However, assistance in the form of interest free payment arrangements is available to those residents and businesses that have been severely impacted by Covid-19 and the national lockdown.”
“We are pleased with the R1,9 billion uptake on the special historic debt write-off but we have R1,8 billion still available to assist residents with historic debt, to act as an incentive to improve the culture of payment, and keep the municipality strong and healthy to continue with the provision of services,” said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Finance, Ian Neilson.