At the height of school examinations period, the eThekwini Municipality cut services to the KwaZulu-natal Department of Education to force it to pay its municipal debt.
The tactic, according to the Metro’s mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, worked and the department paid the municipality more than R90 million.
Kaunda made the revelations while making a case that the municipality was financially sound and was playing hard ball even with the government department to extract payment for services the Metro had rendered.
Kaunda was speaking at the council meeting on Monday where he defended his municipality’s record when it comes to collecting debt.
Opposition parties had taken the City to task over the growing debt and even pointed out that City officials at a senior level owed around R52m in rates and services and yet there had been no accountability to hold those officials responsible and make them settle their accounts.
Speaking on the debt collection, he said in the last five months the municipality had disconnected more than 90 000 people that owed it money, among those it disconnected was the Department of Education.
He said (it’s always claimed that) the municipality always comes to council meetings and misleads the public.
“(it’s said) we are not collecting, we are not pushing government departments to pay us. Let me tell you, from the concerted efforts that have been put in (we are collecting).
“The Department of Education, during examinations, when they were writing examinations, we switched them off then they came and paid more than R90 million because we are acting on what we have committed to do,” said Kaunda.
He also spoke on the cities financial state, saying the national treasury had found that eThekwini municipality is the most stable financially municipality in the country
KwaZulu-Natal Education spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi confirmed the payment but said the cutting of services did not have an impact on the writing of examinations.
The Mercury