Hon Chair, it is the responsibility of government and organisations of civil society to educate the South African citizens about the fact that they have rights and obligations. The state has an obligation to deliver good quality services to its citizens efficiently and effectively. The legitimacy of any government is contingent upon its ability to demonstrate to the electorate that it is capable of walking the talk and leading by example.
In spite of the provisions of this Bill, there are large sections of our population that are either unable to pay for services or refuse to pay for them. Both the rich and the poor are of the view that government is unable to uniformly apply this Act across the length and breadth of our country. The poor take the view that properties are being given higher values in order to extract money to pay for inefficient councillors. On the other hand, the rich hold the view that they are being milked further to subsidise the poor without getting real value for money.
It is incumbent upon the government to demonstrate which position is correct in this regard. The majority of ratepayers have no problem contributing to the development and subsidisation of services for the poor, provided that the proceeds of such contributions actually reach the intended beneficiaries and do not slip through the cracks of mismanagement and corruption. The fact that we stand on the platform today to debate this issue is a demonstration of the very lack of capacity and inefficiency on the part of some of these municipalities to honour their national mandate. However, we support this Bill.