Question NW358 to the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure

Reply:

The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) is responsible for paying municipal services (electricity, water, refuse and sanitation) on behalf of client departments, including the South African Police Services (SAPS). The municipal accounts that DPWI has with various municipalities across the country are in the name of DPWI. On a monthly basis, DPWI receives the municipal accounts, verifies the accuracy of the property listed, confirms if it was not paid before, after which the invoices are processed. At the end of the month, a report is drawn from the system for all payments made on behalf of client department and invoices are issued against client departments, such as SAPS, to pay DPWI within 30 days. It takes an average of over 90 days for client departments to settle their invoices with DPWI as part of recovery on payments made on behalf of clients departments.

a) & b) I have been informed by the Department that the total number of police stations in the Republic that have outstanding current service accounts in terms of water and electricity usage and the provinces that they are located are captured in the table below:

Regional Office	Province	Number of Police Stations	Outstanding Water Service Accounts	Outstanding Electricity Service Accounts
Polokwane	Limpopo	109	R 170 791.32	R 1 818 618.59
Bloemfontein	Free State	49	R 716 341.79	R 5 406 809.17
Cape Town	Western Cape	315	R 985 000.00	R 755 545.00
Kimberley	Northern Cape	116	R 272 708.55	R 1 640 572.88
Mmabatho	North West	118	R 471 522.39	R 3 848 218.12
Nelspruit	Mpumalanga	87	R -	R -
Umtata	Eastern Cape	70	R 799 411.66	R 1 185 471.82
Durban	Kwa-Zulu Natal	23	R 12 878.44	R 534 412.98
Johannesburg	Gauteng	139	R 638 451.11	R 1 043 972.70
Pretoria	Gauteng	40	R 1 936 990.52	R 1 828 873.53
Port Elizabeth	Eastern Cape	18	R 187 370.34	R 189 966.47
Grand Total	1086	R 6 191 466.12	R 18 252 461.26

c) There are other services being rendered by DPWI such as refuse, sanitation and property rates that are being serviced and paid on a monthly basis by the department. Payments of invoices to suppliers and service providers including municipalities on services rendered remains key deliverables for DPWI and the Ministry.

In some instances, the outstanding accounts include certain charges where some municipalities have levied interest on certain accounts as a result of, what they believed, were overdue accounts while in actual fact payments were made and not timeously allocated by municipalities.

DPWI continues to have regular sessions (including remote sessions) about timeous allocations of monies paid and corrections of incorrect billed services with municipalities. The persistent challenge experienced by the department is where some municipalities do not have adequate ICT infrastructure to remotely connect and be able to address some queries raised by the department related to incorrect statements and/or outstanding amounts.

DPWI’s commitment to ensure that all valid invoices are settled within 30 days on receipt of statements and invoices, or the agreed period with stakeholders, remains unwavering, hence the improved trajectory over the past couple of months of settling invoices within 30 days.