Thank you very much. I don't think so. As it stands, the Division of Revenue is correct. Remember, municipalities get a grant in the main. This grant goes towards the improvement of infrastructure, the improvement of your sports facilities, the improvement of your roads and all that. This is a grant that comes from the national fiscus.
In addition to that grant, municipalities collect rates and taxes, levies and all that ... to people. That is their money. They must set bylaws; they must set rules. They must charge people for the
water that they distribute, they must charge people for the electricity that they distribute and they must manage that very well.
If you run a municipality like you run a retail business ... A municipality is a business because you sell services. Now, you must be creative, you must expand your scope and you must build new settlements. You must form new towns, because if you form these new towns, those are your areas where you are going to get revenue.
Municipalities must expand their base where they are going to get revenue and they must provide good services so that the clients do not always complain. Clients should be happy. They must be happy to pay for their electricity. They must be happy to pay for water. They must correct their billing system. You can't come here and say, I owe R10 000, yet I can tell that I was not in the house for five days. How come my bill is R10 000? My billing should be correct. What angers people at times is the fact that the billing is incorrect. Municipalities must be able to manage their municipalities like a business. A municipality is a business. They get the money that they collect from people. They must reinvest that money so that they expand their business. Expanding their business ... They must create new settlements. They must create new business
centres because if they allow space for businesses, industrial parks in their area, that's where they are going to get revenue. If they allow more mixed settlements, that's where they are going to get revenue. They can't sit and wait for a grant. They must be creative. The law empowers them to charge rates and taxes.
However, there are people in municipal areas that don't pay and they get away with murder. Then they come and complain that they are poor. Yet, people are consuming the services free of charge. That can't be right. They must stand up and ensure that people pay, and they must bill them correctly.
You can't be populist. When you come ... you want to be a mayor. You promise people heaven and earth and say, no, you are not going to pay. However, when you become a mayor you find that these people must pay but you're afraid to go back and tell them, hey, you must pay now. Now that I'm a mayor I see that you must pay. That's the problem. We must be consistent in our message but we must do the right thing. We must keep a proper indigent register. We must know the people in our system that must be exempted. We must know people that must pay. You must know how many people who are not working that are in a ward ... that are working. So, partly, our municipalities must do their jobs. [Applause.]