The new Mayor of Tshwane, Dr. Nasiphi Moya, is faced with debt of over R11 billion, while creditors owe the City over R28 billion. In this interview with BizNews, Dr Moya details her 100-day action plan to save the Metro; gives viewers the low-down on behind-the-scenes talks on a payment plan of the almost R7-billion it owes ESKOM alone. She details measures to mitigate the water crisis; and gives an update on her other priorities, including infrastuctructure development, economic revitalisation, equitable basic service delivery, by-law enforcement and inner-city rejuvenation. Dr Moya says the “anxiety that we as politicians caused” in the lead-up to the Motion of No Confidence in her predecessor “is unforgivable”, but she vows not to let issues inside the council chambers translate into lack of service delivery.
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Extended transcript of the interview
Chris Steyn (00:01.895)
The new Mayor of Tshwane, Dr. Nasiphi Moya, has embarked on a 100-day action plan to save the Metro. She’s with us now to tell us all about it. Welcome, Dr. Moya.
Nasiphi Moya (00:15.852)
Thank you so much, Chris. Good morning and good morning to the listeners at home as well.
Chris Steyn (00:21.619)
Well, you’ve inherited a Tshwane with debt that stands at almost 11 billion, with almost 7 billion owed to Eskom. How do you intend collecting that outstanding debt? And what progress is being made to bring financial stability to Tshwane?
Nasiphi Moya (00:46.262)
Firstly, on the issue of the debt. So the debt we’re talking about, the 11 billion, is to the normal creditors. It excludes the one that we owe to the workers. So it’s a little more than that.
So with ESKOM, because what we have decided was we’re not going to do this alone. We are a sphere, there are other spheres that are involved in this and there’s a lot of people that are depending on the Metro to be successful. This country depends on this capital to work as well. So what we’ve done was to approach the Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr. Ramakgopa, and said, is there a way we can talk? We have a court date at the end of the month. It doesn’t look good that us as the Metro will be with the power utility at court in front of the judges if we can’t talk to each other. So that was one of the first things I did after the election. So Dr. Ramakgopa then said to us, prepare payment plans. So we’ve been working on that in the past two or three weeks. That’s what we’ve been focusing on. Our first prizd, Chris, is that we must get out of court, we must freeze the interest on arreas. So basically, we’ve paid over 700 million only on interest on arreas the past 12 months. And yeah, while we have been able to pay every month in terms of what is owed on the current account, but we are not able to pay within 30 days. So we are saying to the Minister, all of these are facts – and we’re not going to pretend that this is not a crisis. However, it must stop. How do we stop it between the City of Tshwane and between the power utility? So we also applied for the debt, that debt programme of ESKOM.
Nasiphi Moya (02:38.158)
Ourselves and Ekurhuleni were rejected. Obviously, we are metros. We are not supposed to be there in the first place. So we were rejected. So we’re not even getting assistance from that side. So what we have done now is that we agreed, let’s work on getting out of the court process, but let’s convince each other. So on, sorry, the days are a bit messed up, but we had a meeting with Gauteng ESKOM a few days ago where then they say they are piece, what they are unhappy about.
Let me say this as well. Last year there was an arrangement between Tshwane – ESKOM – and NERSA was mediating between the two to find solutions. It led up to a payment plan being drafted. And then the power utility changed their minds and said, we’re going to court. And I asked them that day, why did you change your mind? It looks like they were not convinced by what we were saying in terms of the conditions and they were going the hard line. So that’s what has been happening in the background.
But what we are saying to the Minister, if you get us out of court, you freeze the interest on arreas. And then we have a payment plan for them, for the debt itself, which we can all agree on, then we’ll be able, what we can commit on is this leadership is to be able to pay the current account going forward. But then that’s the proposal on the table.
Then the question would be, how do you…how can you guarantee that we’ll be able to sustain the payment? There’s a lot of work that is happening on the revenue collection side, including extra efforts to diversify our rates and taxes pool, like who actually pays, including us responding to the crisis that residents will tell you, you guys want to pay, but you’re not billing us on what we’ve consumed. You estimate.
Nasiphi Moya (04:41.538)
Give me my bill and I’ll pay it. So that is one of the things that are on the 100 days program.
We then said to the big businesses, most of them, are owing us millions because we are in dispute. They’re not agreeing. Again is the issue of estimates. We said we’re going to reduce that so that that money can come to us.
We then said when it comes to the debtors book, we have over 23 billion, not all of that money… After COVID, you’re not going to get all of that money. We need to be realistic about what is collectible from that 23 billion without introducing a culture of non-payment that we can’t have, we can’t afford that. So the debtors book must be cleaned and that’s part of the work that we need to do.
And then obviously there are some interventions that are more technical, but I think in the main is for us as the leadership to tell the residents of Tshwane, they must pay their bills on time – and for us we must provide service.
But also there are other elements that people may think they are not directly linked to our revenue collection is the issue of outages and water leakage. So those revenue losses, they contribute to us raising funds. So for instance, if an area is out for eight hours, that’s money that’s not in our bank account and we’re not gonna get back. If an area like Attridgeville, Laudium, Soshanguve, Hammanskraal, Mamelodi, they do not have water. Do you know what happens? One, they don’t pay for the water because it’s not in their taps, so we’re not billing for them. Secondly, we send water tankers who use our water to go give it for free to the residents. So there are other matters that we are dealing with.
There’s special intervention on our infrastructure programmes working with ESKOM now because one of the things that we are also putting as part of the proposal to ESKOM is the revenue protection programme. How will we make sure the issues of prepaid meters, the issues of the projects, the infrastructure upgrades that we need to get on the road. You know, they actually shared with me that there are about five projects that are on hold because of this debt…
Nasiphi Moya (07:02.258)
because they’re saying we can’t give you more capacity, how will you pay for it? And it’s a genuine question. But what it means for us, if these projects are unlocked, we are able then to supply to the residents and in turn they pay for it.
So the point is, Chris, there’s a lot that is happening. All what we are saying is that we want to collect revenue so that we can service our obligations, but with all of this, we still have an issue of an unfunded budget. With that unfunded budget, it’s been, I think it’s gonna be, it’s the fourth year, if I’m not mistaken, that the City has had an unfunded budget. Not ideal at all.
Now, what we are saying, we need to now exercise a degree of discipline that will lead us that when we go to the residents in March, we are taking a funded budget. It’s a tall order, but if we had, if we had didn’t said that and we, if we haven’t said it with our mouth to the residents that this is what we want to do, then we wouldn’t sound serious because how do you say to residents, we’re a new administration, but let’s continue with things as they are. So all the efforts that we like, you know, everyone now brings to the table is to say, Will we have a funded budget next year? Will we be able to pay salaries every month? Will we be able to pay the 13th cheques at the end of this year? Will we be able to keep paying Rand Water so we have no issues with Rand Water supplying us? Are we able to convince ESKOM to help us? Because even that 77 million rand just going on interest alone. It makes me breathe twice. why? Yes, so those are the key.
But on the other hand, services must go to the people. We can’t wait. So all of this is happening, we say, with the projects that are in communities, we must implement those projects. There can’t be grants that go back to National Treasury under our watch. I know every mayor will say this, but I think for us, we understand the implications. If we don’t do that, the implications are dire for us.
Nasiphi Moya (09:17.976)
You can’t return money to National Treasury. Then there are efforts that are going to that 23 billion rand that we have. Let’s spend it. Let’s do intensify our social facilitation because in many cases, the projects that get stopped, that gets delayed are in the townships. Now we’re saying those are Tshwane residents. Let’s go talk to them. Let’s eliminate elements of criminality, deal with criminality to one side, but let’s intensify social facilitation so that we can engage and get communities to own these projects.
While we do that, we are saying every day our teams must be in communities, they must work. So we have this weekly programme that we have and we must clean our city. While we do that, we need to also open economic opportunities for this city.
One of the ways we’re going to get the revenue collection right is if economic growth is happening in our city. And we said, let’s diversify economy. We’ve got titans of industries in our city. It’s not every city that can boast about having BMW, Nissan, Toyota, sorry, not Toyota. Sorry, I forgot, Ford, and all this. So we’ve got this industry in our city. How do we keep them here? Because with all these sources of energy, we don’t have a monopoly on anything. Now we’re talking to the SABs here and they’re saying to us, we’re not looking for a lot. Give us water, us electricity, give us good roads so that our customers can drive these cars, right? It’s not that difficult, right? So that is happening, the support that we need to give to the industries that are in the city.
We’ve got agricultural industry that is in our city. What are we doing? We’ve got fresh produce market. How are we facilitating those things? And they sound like they’re long-term, but they’re actually basic. The City wasn’t established yesterday. These things should be institutionalised by now. But not every part of our economy depend on these industries
Nasiphi Moya (11:28.782)
We then say with SMMEs, how do we as the city, we do have an obligation towards SMMEs, towards informal traders. How do we then deal with the issue of opening up opportunities with the Spaza shops? Where within the legislation of the Republic, how do we make sure that the residents of Tshwane, they can have very safe businesses in the townships that in the form of Spaza shops?
So all of this is happening and it’s not new. We’re not establishing anything new here. We’re just focusing the efforts to say, how do we deal with the 34% percent of unemployment? Because if we have that 34% percent of unemployment, all it means is that you’re increasing the indigent households and you’re not getting rates payers. So how do we, it’s also our problem. It’s not a national problem. It’s a local problem. We live with these people at a local government level.
So those are the efforts that we are putting in, but the issue of by-laws, I think for business, they say, listen, in addition to the services you give to us, for instance, the city property in the CBD, how do you expect our clients to feel safe? Make sure there’s a TMPD visibility. You clean the CBD, you make sure that the taxis are on one side, we are on the other side. You know, there must be order. And I think even for us who are hosting the world here in the form of embassies, when they come here, I mean, we don’t want them to drive in the CBD and feel like, awh, ooh, what. No, we want everyone, if they want to walk, they must walk, this is our CBD. So that by-law enforcement is very important.
And also for us, the issue of inner city rejuvenation. I mean, you look at Cape Town CBD, it’s refreshing. Who doesn’t want that? We want a CBD that’s refreshing, but a lot of bad buildings here that we need to deal with and take a decisive step to say, what do you do when you find a person has abandoned a building? By the way, we find these buildings when we do Tshwane…That’s why I was saying the issue of 23 billion rand of debtors book.
Nasiphi Moya (13:45.934)
It’s not a reality because you go to its one here, the biggest owing client would be say 2.5 million. When you get there, this building has not been…you don’t even think the owner has visited the building in 10 years. It looks like that. So those are the buildings that we also need to take care. luckily for us, we’ve got business that are interested. We’ve got students. So the VCs which I’m due to meet, they will tell you, please provide accommodation to our students. Give us options on how to accommodate.
But one of the things is the last point here. One of the things that we on the economic part, economic revitalization is to revive the discussion about the old industrials. There’s no way we can do this and ignore that.
You know, I always say to people, it’s sad because you meet anyone from Garankuwa, from Hammanskraal they will tell you how much they miss the Boputashwana government. I’m like, it’s a shame. We’re democratic South African people are missing the Apartheid Boputashwana because we have failed as the democratic government to just deal with the power of attorney and the debt that is owed to ESKOM, just to find a common ground to say, how do we unlock that opportunity and bring those industries to Tshwane.
And again, we met with the Chamber of Commerce. They’re saying, just tell us when you are done. We’re in. Investors want to come to Tshwane. But obviously, you need to do the work that you need to do. So all of this then, while we have appreciated the media and the platform that the media gives to us to explain this vision to the residents of Tshwane and also South Africa, because people are interested to say, will the capitol work? Or should we be worried about the capitol? So the media has been very helpful to us to give us that platform that we reach these households. But we must go to the people. So we must go ourselves physically have imbizos and tell people who we are, what we’re thinking of, what we know already, and they tell us what we don’t know. And then we move from there. So that programme of imbizos…
Nasiphi Moya (16:08.864)
it starts on this Saturday and then we’re gonna roll it out every weekend. Every Friday we identify a township in addition to the work that we do, a township or a CBD where we go, put all our resources, we clean, we enforce by-laws, we maintain whatever needs to be maintained as part of the … programme. So that is the 100 days plan that we have shared with the residents of Tshwane.
Chris Steyn (16:37.233)
Dr. Moya, amid these financial constraints, which infrastructure project is at the top of your list?
Nasiphi Moya (16:46.072)
Hammanskraal water. That is giving me sleepless nights. So with the Hammanskraal water, we’re not paying for the short-term intervention. Department of Water and Sanitation is paying and Magalies Water is the implementing agent, but we are directly involved because the distribution side is our problem. So the issues of pipe replacement on the distribution site, the water meter leakages, because remember these residents were not paying for this water. So the infrastructure is neglected. So we’ve been replacing those. We will be able to finish by end of the month. So that’s just the part that belongs to Tshwane.
But initially with Hammanskraal water, remember we said September, that was the deadline. And then we came to the residents and said, it’s now October after the team encountered a rock. Now they are…it’s a lot of that by the way, but they said they did the geo studies, but they did not see these. So as they encounter, they must make plans. So there’s a lot of rocks there, but that then delayed. In fact, it didn’t even delay. We had to change because there are four modules. They had to change from starting with the module one that they started with number four. That’s how big the problem is that they couldn’t even deal with it at that level. So that was the first reason of the delay.
It wasn’t anything that is typical with projects that it stopped or there was no money or there was no political will, no, wasn’t anything like that. So that was the first delay. Then we went to residents of Hammanskraal. I promise you in that imbizo, I was very surprised at how understanding they were. Sometimes, yeah. So they understood. And then we then received a letter, we were assisted in a letter where Magalies was reporting to the minister to say, listen we’ve had another delay.
Nasiphi Moya (18:47.931)
The main one that had a blow on the progress was the substation that burnt in Ekurhuleni. So while they are doing the civil work in Tshwane, the technical work, the building is happening in Ekurhuleni, in a plant in Ekurhuleni. So the burning of that substation then had an effect on a six-day delay in the work that Magalies must do.
So they then said, can we then advise the minister that we don’t pressurise the team because we don’t want to create problems? Then we ask that the minister can say the project will be finished on the 15th of November.
We went there two Fridays ago as the new administration, met with them. I’ve worked with them since I’ve joined the City earlier this year to say, explain to us, what does this mean? Because while the minister is the paying entity, we’re the ones who must communicate and make sure there is no confusion at a local level. They explained this to us. And what we said to them was, while you are saying 15th of November, you’re quite positive about that. Our ultimate deadline that needs to be communicated is when if we are launching now, you cut the ribbon, we drink the water ourselves. That’s how we want to do it. So if it means let’s allow the residents to be unhappy with us for additional two weeks, let it be, we will take it. But we cannot say because it’s going to create confusion…you can’t then say we are launching today but the water is not ready to be, we’re gonna cause a lot of harm. So that’s where we are in terms of that project. In terms of what they’ve given us is that end of the month…
Nasiphi Moya (20:39.346)
because of what we have said and we said we’re going to advise the minister so as well that we don’t rush the launch. The launch must go hand in hand with us drinking the water before we allow those residents to do so.
So yesterday afternoon we met with the councillors from Hammanskraal. They are unhappy but we explained and they understand what this means that we would rather do it right than to rush it just to appease people only to put people at harm.
So that work is happening because also I think in our communication is for the residents to understand which areas. We’ve been saying all of these things, but the moment a house one kilometer away from me is drinking water, I may think I’m also okay. So there’s a lot of work that is happening and is done by councillors just to make sure that people don’t drink water when that time comes that the right people drink water and not the wrong people because we don’t want another situation here.
So that’s the project that is really keeping me up at night. But we, in terms of water generally, Gauteng has said we have a water crisis. Minister yesterday lambasted us and said, listen that is not drought. You guys are reckless. And the minister, sorry, the premier has said to us, do what you can to make this work. Rand Water is part of that conversation. Magalies is now part of that conversation.
The bottom line is that we know that all the municipalities will contribute to water losses and the leakage is us not maintaining infrastructure, it contributes to that. So the minister wasn’t totally, we have contributed because we’ve neglected, for whatever reason, we’ve neglected to make sure that our infrastructure is maintained. Secondly, there’s a lot of illegal connections to our infrastructure. So those are the things that we must deal with.
Nasiphi Moya (22:40.11)
The bottom line now is that we’re saying there’s a water crisis because when we have in Tshwane, areas like Mamelodi, Soshanguve, Attridgeville, Hammanskraal without water. Bronkhorstpruit. That’s a water crisis…That’s a water crisis to us because it won’t be a crisis when there’s water flowings in the tap. So that’s another situation that we are dealing with, with province as well as Rand Water as one of our, as the supplier, but also with Magalies on the side of Hammanskraal.
And then we cannot, the issue of the power infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, Kwagga must work for us. If Kwagga is out, almost 60% of residents are in the dark. I was baptized with fire when Kwagga was out. Luckily, it was only out for six hours. And I’m saying luckily, guidedly here that we’re able to, you know, to respond. But what it means is that we must prioritise Kwagga must work. Nyala must work. Wildebeest must work. Pyramid must work because if Pyramid doesn’t work, it affects the Rooiwal project they planned. In Soshanguve, AI must work.
And so all of these infrastructure, we’re saying the little that we have in our kitty, it must be diverted to maintain this infrastructure. We will get there.
But also in both water and electricity, we’re also participating in the National Treasury reforms. So in those National Treasury reforms, we’re changing the approach to trading services. It’s nothing new. I mean, even when National Treasury explains to you we’re not changing the world here, it’s been done before. We are just…
Nasiphi Moya (24:22.924)
giving you options. So in Tshwane in August, council approved the Water Turnaround Strategy. This Thursday passing in October in the October Council, we approved the Electricity and Energy turnaround strategy. What it means, it basically changes how we approach the silos and also the fact that you know you have this department that must depend on seven other departments and the head of this department has no control what these other departments have. At the end of the day, does have a ripple effect in the effectiveness of a department. So then as Tshwane, we went for the business unit approach, not the entities like Joburg. And we said, let’s make that work. And then if there’s a need to upgrade to entities, that would be a future discussion to have. That is likely to attract grants. But we still need to confirm with National Treasury if that’s the case. So but it’s likely to attract grants. At least we can know that we can deal with both the water and electricity infrastructure. Then we can talk about the roads and other social infrastructure.
Chris Steyn (25:58.205)
Dr. Moya, any last words from you of hope for the long suffering residents of the capitol?
Nasiphi Moya (26:06.222)
I think firstly is to say the residents, I know that it looks bad, especially after they lead-up to the motion. It was terrible, the anxiety that we as politicians caused. It’s unforgivable. But then after the motion, at least it was an issue of transition and make sure that, you know, services continue.
But I think the images coming out of council on Thursday, they don’t look good for us because we’ve said we will give you stability. The next thing our colleagues, you know, they appear to have been dragged out of council and the residents are asking, is this your idea of stability?
But I think what is important for me is to say we will work this out. We’ve got our own issues inside the council chambers, but those issues cannot translate into lack of service delivery. Services will come to them. We will do the best that we can to make sure that we continue to serve the residents of Tshwane. I’m not saying they must ignore what happens in council, but we will sort it out. We are all leaders in council. We are all representing the residents of Tshwane, so we will find each other and act that way.
But for the residents, they have our commitment in terms of the services coming to them and us trying to find solutions.
You will see us all over the place. For me, I’m not even ashamed of begging. Like, MEC, can I have just five minutes of your time and then I go there? Because we need to find creative solutions on how we serve the residents. And that’s from my side that will happen, but we’ll talk to the residents of Tshwane. We’re not going to tweet them. We’ll talk to them. We’ll meet with leaders of society in Tshwane. We’ve started, we’ve met with business, we’ve met with labour, we’ve met with the taxi industry. So we’re going to meet with the leaders of society in Tshwane. So it’s not that this government is closed to the people. And one of the things that I have been getting from…
Nasiphi Moya (28:15.478)
I don’t know how to describe. Residents that I’ve dealt with before, even when I was a Chief of Staff, and say, yeah, does this mean you’re only going to serve the townships? I’m like, no, that’s not what I said. I said, equitable service delivery in the city. That’s what I said. I didn’t say I’m going to only save the townships.
And I think what is important though is just to understand our vision and where these stakeholders fit into that vision. And also for them to tell us their vision.
And for instance, the issue of the AfriForum MOU. Why should we single out AfriForum? We don’t want to work with you. They’re equally residents of the city. But we’re going to engage with them. We’ve reached out. I’ve reached out and said, listen, can we talk? Discomforts here and there, can we talk about them and not tweet each other? Sometimes we think tweeting is communication. Like, no, let’s meet. Let’s talk about what the discomforts, what is it that we would like to see happen? What is it that you want to see happen? And then we take from there. So from my side, personally, I’m not here to divide the city. I’m here to unite the city.
And that’s my commitment. So the work will continue. We will have challenges, but it’s how we respond to those challenges that I think will count for residents to forgive us for our mistakes.
Chris Steyn (29:43.037)
Thank you. was the new Major of Tshwane, Dr. Moya speaking to BizNews and I’m Chris Steyn. Thank you, doctor.
Nasiphi Moya (29:51.288)
Thank you so much for having me.
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