The City of Joburg (CoJ) recently launched a new initiative to find residents with outstanding municipal bills at roadblocks and assist them in settling their debts, in an effort to recoup a portion of the R48 billion owed to the city by its inhabitants.
The CoJ said that it will station revenue officials at select metro police (JMPD) roadblocks who will be responsible for providing citizens with a copy of their outstanding accounts, and help them settle their accounts on the spot or enter into an Acknowledgment of Debt (AoD) agreement.
However, William Booth of Cape Town-based William Booth Attorneys believes that this practice is completely against the law and that the CoJ is overstepping its bounds.
“One cannot pull over a motorist without having some or other legal reason to do so. If there is a roadblock that is set up, one has to apply for that to be set up [and] there’s a process that has to be followed,” Booth said in an interview with eNCA.
“Usually [roadblocks] are set up to check whether vehicles are roadworthy and in respect of incidents of drunken driving, for example, so to pull over somebody and then to determine whether or not they have an outstanding account with the city for rates or electricity is, in my view, not legal.”
An unpaid municipal account is a civil dispute that must be instituted against a person, who then has the legal right to challenge the dispute in the civil court, said Booth. There is no legislation that permits revenue officials to perform their duties at roadblocks or alongside the JMPD’s services.
Therefore, if a CoJ official tries to collect any payments from motorists on the side of the road, whether through intimidation or cooperation, they will be acting against the law.
Booth said motorists must be aware of their rights when pulled over at a roadblock, which include:
- You must be pulled over for a justifiable reason
- You cannot be forced to pay any municipal bill on the side of a road
- You have no obligation to interact or engage with revenue teams at a roadblock
- The JMPD has no rights whatsoever to arrest you or threaten you with arrest for outstanding bills
“It is obviously a bit frightening for many motorists who stopped and a few law enforcement officers come to your window and start harassing you and making plans which are, in fact, illegal,” said Booth.
“It places you in a predicament, you know what your rights are, you know what the law is, but they don’t enforce the law, so it can potentially be a frightening incident.”
A successful pilot
Despite the backlash the CoJ has faced for its new debt-collection strategy, the City’s Chief Financial Officer Tebogo Moraka has hailed this past weekend’s pilot project as a success with resistance from motorists being approached by revenue officials being “minimal.”
Around 750 vehicles passed through the roadblock with many motorists being notified for the first time of the various platforms through which they can settle their accounts, for example the Zenzele portal, while approximately 125 motorists took advantage of the interaction to update their details on the CoJ database.
“From a pilot point of view, I believe it was successful, it achieved what it needed to achieve, which is engagement with residents, letting them know if they are owing, and also updating their details if the details that we have are old and no longer relevant,” Moraka told Newzroom Afrika.
He also reiterated the fact that this is just “another contact point” for the CoJ to connect with its residents and that they are free to “drive off” after they are told about their outstanding debts without having to enter into an AoD or pay their accounts on the spot.
Keyword: Joburg cornering non-paying residents at roadblocks is illegal