Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Cllr Riëtte Dell and Sesotho soundbite by David Masoeu MPL. See attached picture here.
– 578 vacant and neglected properties have approximately R13.76 million in outstanding municipal debt.
– R5 million has been written off over the past five years, while neglected properties continue to burden communities and municipal resources.
– The DA is calling for decisive debt recovery, including sale in execution where legally appropriate, to recover debt and return properties to productive use.
A response received after the DA Setsoto Caucus submitted a Question to Council, following concerns raised by the Ficksburg community about a neglected plot, has exposed a much bigger problem in Setsoto: long-standing municipal debt on vacant and neglected properties is not being dealt with decisively enough.
According to residents living in the area, this particular plot has stood vacant and neglected for more than 29 years. While the 29 years is based on residents’ reports, the Municipality’s own response confirms that the account was only handed over for formal debt collection in April 2025, when approximately R21 900 was outstanding. By August 2026, the debt had grown to R36 605, and the matter is only now progressing to the Letter of Demand stage.
By then, a problem that had affected the neighbourhood for decades had already become both a financial and service-delivery burden.
The consequences are not only financial. Neglected erven can become overgrown, attract illegal dumping and rodents, and create health and safety concerns for surrounding communities. In this case, Community Services must now use municipal resources to clean the site, while Environmental Health Practitioners must investigate the reported rodent problem.
This is the double cost of inaction: municipal debt continues to grow while other municipal departments eventually have to spend scarce resources dealing with the consequences of neglected properties.
And this is not an isolated problem. The Municipality’s response identifies 578 accounts with approximately R13.76 million outstanding, while more than R5 million has been written off over five years.
While aggressive revenue-collection measures are enforced against residents who remain active municipal customers, the same urgency must be applied to long-standing debt linked to vacant and abandoned properties.
Where owners cannot be traced, and debt continues to accumulate, the Municipality must pursue the full legal debt-recovery process and, where legally appropriate, ultimately pursue sale in execution to recover outstanding debt and return neglected properties to productive use.
Setsoto has confirmed that it has never used sale in execution of immovable property to recover municipal debt, and no properties are currently at that stage.
The DA believes revenue collection must be fair, consistent and effective. We will hold the municipal manager accountable because Setsoto cannot afford another 29 years of inaction while debt accumulates, properties deteriorate and neighbouring communities are left to live with the consequences.