The AG’s report is extremely disturbing. You have 98% of municipalities that are dysfunctional. Only 20% in the country have achieved a clean audit.

There’ve been a spate of court orders forcing services to be placed in the hands of residents, which is unfortunate. We shouldn’t have residents or residents’ associations or businesses running a municipality. This is why we pay rates and taxes.

This speaks to your point of the lack of service delivery. [It] is largely as a result of wasteful and irregular expenditure, corruption in procurement processes, and poor adherence to financial controls. The dire state of our roads, water and electricity services is as a result of poor governance measures. And, of course, we have increased levels of false declarations regarding municipal tenders that play into all of this.

So not a good situation for property owners. We’ve had to establish central improvement districts [CIDs] around the country, to which property owners have to pay a certain amount on a monthly basis; but they also pay their property rates. So a double-whammy for property owners. You are paying property rates and a levy to the CIDs to provide the service that the municipality doesn’t provide.

SUREN NAIDOO: The CIDs are another story altogether. They are doing some good work across the country in various cities and urban areas.