Department still adamant to assist municipalities enhance revenue collection
The public and private sector partnership surfaced as the most practical solution to address and enhance the poor state of municipal revenue collection when the North West Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs recently convened with municipalities, sector departments and private sector organisations for a round table discussion on municipal revenue enhancement at Mmabatho Civic Center in Mmabatho.
Director for Municipal Finance, Botlhale Mofokeng said that these round table discussions are meant to address challenges faced by municipalities in terms of revenue enhancement.
“We are seeking simple, practical and doable solutions which will enable municipalities to enhance their revenue collection. In our quest to continuously provide the necessary support to these municipalities, we have brought in public sector departments like the National Treasury, Provincial Treasury and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) while our strategic private sector partners include MBD Credit Solutions, Price Water Coopers (PWC) and Eskom to assist municipalities address critical revenue enhancement issues such as data cleansing, correct billing and customer care,” she said.
One such partnership was a six months revenue enhancement pilot project between the department, Mahikeng Local Municipality and MBD Credit Solutions. The pilot project which was conducted by MBD Credit Solution at no charge to the department or the municipality was aimed at creating tangible results which will show improved revenue collection and customer care.
Head of Public Sector Business Unit at MBD Credit Solutions, Mr Johannes Mashapa said that this pilot project was also aimed at transferring skills by training staff on the software used and also establish a sustainable call center by upgrading the call center infrastructure set up before we could start with the actual revenue collection and conduct feasible debt collection for the municipality.
“At the call center, we have set up a debt collection section where thus far in January 2014 alone we have collected R5 784 357.29 for the municipality. The other section of the call center is a customer care section with a toll free number where issues reported by communities are escalated to the different departments within the municipality are given the necessary attention and queries are resolved timeously thus assisting with effective collections. This has enhanced the reputation of the municipality, generated a positive reaction and interaction from consumers and improved the rehabilitation of debtors,” he said.
Meanwhile, the department is determined and will continue in its strive to support all municipalities as much as possible by creating a viable environment for these public sector and private sector partnerships in order to improve on how municipalities can best enhance revenue collection and continue to render sustainable services to the general public.
Contact:
Spokesperson: Dineo Lolokwane
Cell: 072 542 8444
