Ratepayers’ grievances ‘valid’: Minister
2010-03-11 11:00
CO-OPERATIVE Governance Deputy Minister Yunus Carrim has said white ratepayers creating their own parallel governments had reason to be unhappy with service delivery.
“Their grievances are indeed valid,” Carrim told Beeld newspaper in an interview at Parliament in Cape Town.
“We respect them and we are sorry about the [bad] service delivery but change won’t happen overnight,” he said.
Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka earlier this month said more than 280 white ratepayer associations were creating parallel governments.
“We have discovered that over 280 ratepayers’ associations, which unfortunately are white organisations, have created a parallel government,” he told reporters at Parliament.
“They take the money instead of paying service to municipalities and put it in a trust account.
“That undermines the ability of municipalities to deliver services.”
These associations withhold their rates and pay the money into a trust account to carry out their own municipal services.
Shiceka said the government would try and talk to these associations but if they did not back down, legal action would be taken.
- SAPA