Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Cllr Hardie Viviers and Sesotho soundbite by Cllr Kabelo Moreeng.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will push for the immediate termination of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality’s (MMM) Third-Party Debt Collection Scheme and call for the Metro’s capacitation to handle debt collection internally.
This is essential to prevent the loss of over R7 billion in outstanding debt and to safeguard the municipality’s financial stability.
During the Council Meeting of 28 August 2025, serious concerns were raised about the performance of the ANC-led administration’s appointed Third-Party Debt Collectors following the withdrawal of their report.
Key issues include:
- The Third-Party Debt Collectors receive an 8.2% commission on amounts paid directly to the Metro, even when they did not collect the payments themselves.
- A total of R7 767 819 934.80 was handed over to these collectors.
- Over four months, they collected only R67 084 945.93, representing a mere 1% of the outstanding debt.
- From this amount, they were paid R6 394 698.24 in commission.
The appointment of these Third-Party Debt Collectors is just a ploy by the ANC-led MMM to benefit ANC politically connected Debt Collectors and Legal Practitioners if this poor performance continues.
If the Executive Mayor cannot address the poor performance of the third-party debt Collectors, the Metro should end the Third-Party Debt collection scheme. Capacitate the Metro to conduct debt collections in-house and ensure that over R7 billion in outstanding debt is not written off as irrecoverable, as in the past.
The knock-on effect for residents of MMM if outstanding debt is not appropriately collected is that much-needed infrastructure maintenance and repairs cannot take place, and that service delivery cannot take place as it should.
The reluctance to collect outstanding debt leads to an adjustment budget, in which the Capital Expenditure Budget is reduced each time, resulting in less infrastructure maintenance and repair and less basic service delivery.
It inevitably leads to MMM being unable to pay its short-term obligations, which raises serious concerns about whether the Entity known as MMM can continue as a going concern.
The matter has already been referred to our public representatives serving on the COGTA Committee in the Free State Provincial Legislature.
Only the DA, as part of the government in a municipality, has a proven track record and has shown in the past that it can properly collect outstanding municipal debt.