Makana Municipality has approved the new rates formula to determine the annual property rates tariffs for this financial year.
The formula was approved by council last week Friday after being presented by the institution’s Chief Financial Officer Jackson Ngcelwane.
Makana Municipality has approved the new rates formula to determine the annual property rates tariffs for this financial year.
The formula was approved by council last week Friday after being presented by the institution’s Chief Financial Officer Jackson Ngcelwane.
By law all municipalies should have had their new billing systems in place from 1 July 2009, however due to non-compliance their Valuation Rolls were rejected by the provincial department. Makana Municipality had to redo the general valuation and produce a newly updated roll in order to comply with the Municipal Property Rates Act which requires all municipalities to conduct a general valuation of all rateable properties in their areas of jurisdiciton once every four years.
The current Valuation Roll has 25000 properties. This month, the municipality will for the first time bill property owners according to the market value of their properties. Properties are categorised in terms of use, such as residential, agriculture, industrial, municipal and business. According to the new rates formula the lowest tariff will be Agriculture and RDP houses, while the highest will be public service infrastructure, business (sale of goods) and government properties.
Ngcelwane further told Grocott’s Mail that the property owners have to pay rates for the rest of the financial year. This means that the rates will be backdated from July 2009. He said ratepayers can consult with the municipality to arrange payment of the monies due for rates.
Furthermore a residential property owner will be billed at 0.0025 cents in the Rand, which means, a property worth R2-million will be billed R5000 annually or pay a monthly fee or R416 which will be consolidated with other tariffs such as electricity and water.
Meanwhile for sectional title properties, the body corporate will no longer be billed for the rates of the entire complex instead each unit owner will be responsible for paying the rates directly to the municipality.
Chairperson of the Grahamstown Residents Association, Clive Whitford welcomed the new rates formula. "The property valuations are high, but the rate of tax has been reduced leaving residents with almost the same as we had to pay before,” he said. For more information, see table on Page Five.
