What can my pensioner mother do about her too-high water bills?

The long answer

It is certainly true that electricity and water rates have risen very steeply in the last few years, while at the same time, we have seen service delivery fall very steeply. It’s a long and complicated story that goes back many years.

Every municipality sets its own water tariffs and structures them in a more complicated way than residential electricity tariffs. This tariff structure is known as block tariffs, where the price per unit of water increases in blocks as usage increases.

The City of Cape Town explains as follows: “The water restrictions imposed during the drought resulted in greatly reduced revenue from water usage, which affected the City's ability to cover maintenance costs. We have reworked the tariff structure to include a fixed component to make it more sustainable. The fixed basic charge is a monthly amount payable by every non-indigent household. (Households that are registered as indigent with the City of Cape Town are charged at a lower rate.) The charge is based on the size of the meter connection to your property and has been calculated to cover about a quarter of the fixed costs that are associated with supplying water to your home. The fixed basic charge is scaled according to the size of your metered connection, as follows: For a 15 mm connection, the fixed monthly charge is 75.26; for a 20 mm connection, R134.39; for a 25 mm connection, R209.64; for a 40mm connection, R557.54, and so on until 100 mm connection at R3,359.64.”

The City of Cape Town says this tariff makes it possible to subsidise water for the majority of its customers.

In a September 2022 Groundup article, Marecia Damons says that families in Cape Town with a total household income of R7,500 or less per month may qualify for a discount on water, sewerage, electricity, and waste collection bills and on property rates. This is called indigent support. Many elderly people were interested in applying for this support.

The problem is that people who are struggling to pay their municipal bills often let things slide until they’ve accumulated a large arrears bill. For example, one man owed more than R60,000 in arrears. But when he applied for indigent relief, he had to pay one month’s municipal bill upfront and then arrange to pay off his arrears.  

As a ward councillor explained, the bill does not go away. 

Indigent support lasts for a year and then the person must re-apply. The councillor said that if residents were dependent on a pension or a social grant, were 60 years or older and earning R4,500 or less gross income a month, they might qualify for a 100% rates rebate. Pensioners aged 60 years or older earning more than R4,501, but no more than R17,500 a month, might qualify for a 10–95% rates rebate. The rates rebate for pensioners was valid for three-year periods.

If your mother thinks there has been a mistake in her billing, rather than that the price has risen so steeply, she should contact the municipality and query the account. But she would still be required to pay the bill while they look into it.

In Cape Town, you can query your account in one of the following ways:

• Online through the Service Request tool;

• Email water@capetown.gov.za;

• Call 0800 103 089 (choose option 2: water-related faults);

• SMS 31373 (free SMSes do not apply);

• Visit your nearest municipal Walk-in centre.

Wishing you the best,
Athalie