Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning
- Whether it has been brought to his attention that municipalities are charging schools at business rates for water bills; if so, what are the relevant details;
- what are the details of how much each municipality in the province charges schools for (a) water, (b) electricity and (c) refuse removal in (i) 2018, (ii) 2019, (iii) 2020 and (iv) 2021 to date?
Yes
The tariff policies for municipalities vary from one to another and the level of tariffs imposed, and subsidies applied to schools are at the discretion of their respective councils. At present there is no consistency in the way in which schools are classified in the respective tariff policies of municipalities.
For instance, Saldanha Bay Municipality classifies schools under churches and other institutions, while Mossel Bay Municipality classify schools under government services such as hospitals, creches and old age homes. The City of Cape Town charges schools in line with the tariff applied to commercial users, however, this is a flat rate and the tariff per unit is less than the amount charged to households per kl.
Although in some cases municipalities apply similar tariffs for schools as for commercial users, they do apply subsidies to the latter.
17(2)
Due to the magnitude of the information requested, the Department will have to collect the information per municipality and will make the information available once received.
