Cape Town’s 2025 R2.2 billion debt write-off: who really pays the price?
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Over the past several years the City of Cape Town has repeatedly introduced programmes that write off large amounts of municipal debt owed by residents.
By September 2021, since the programme began, roughly 46,900 residents applied for payment arrangements, with about 25,200 qualifying for historic debt relief. By that stage the city had already written off around R1.9 billion, while a further R1.8 billion in debt older than three years remained available for write off if residents entered repayment agreements.
The policy has not been without criticism. In May of 2021 Grant Haskin of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) argued that the city’s rising tariffs contribute to the growing debt burden faced by residents. He pointed to increases of 4.5% in property rates, 5% in water and sanitation charges, and 3.5% in refuse removal, while electricity tariffs rose by 13.48% for city customers.
Haskin also criticised the city for spending about R37 million on 13 law firms to pursue unpaid municipal accounts, saying the municipality pressures residents with rising costs and debt collection before later writing off billions of rand in unpaid bills.
More recently, the city has proposed another large relief initiative. In 2025, the City of Cape Town announced a programme that could write off R2.2 billion in outstanding municipal debt for qualifying households and institutions. The plan would allow full debt cancellation for lower value homes and indigent households, while middle income property owners could qualify for partial relief depending on the value of their property.
What we are seeing here is anarcho-tyranny, where two different sets of rules apply to different groups. In this case, the city has failed to collect municipal service payments from some residents and later writes off the debt. While this may work on paper, in practice the financial burden does not disappear. Instead, it is shifted onto responsible residents through higher rates, taxes, fines, and growing compliance costs.
Independent news and opinion articles with a focus on the Western Cape, written for a more conservative audience – the silent majority with good old common sense.
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