Patriotic Alliance pledges three-month rates holiday and council house transfers
Written on
The Patriotic Alliance has put municipal bills at the centre of its election pitch, promising a three-month property rates holiday for qualifying homes, transfers of council houses to long-standing tenants and protection of municipal land for affordable housing.
The Patriotic Alliance has placed municipal bills at the centre of its election campaign, with a manifesto that promises a three-month rates holiday for qualifying residential properties below a value threshold that has not yet been published, and the write-off of historic arrears for qualifying indigent and low-income households. Other households could earn write-downs over 18 months by paying their current bills.
On housing, the party says it would turn tenants into owners by transferring qualifying council houses to long-standing tenants, including people who have occupied them for 20 years, with the municipality paying conveyancing costs. It also promises to audit council rental stock within 100 days, clear title deed backlogs, upgrade informal settlements and require affordable or social housing when well-located municipal land is released for development.
In its assessment of the manifesto, Daily Maverick notes that the rates holiday is not three months of free water and electricity for everybody, and that debt relief is not a blanket amnesty. The party also invokes an April high court ruling against Cape Town’s fixed municipal charges, but its claim about who pays more needs a comparison of complete household bills rather than selected tariff lines.
The manifesto is unusually detailed about what a councillor, a coalition partner and a governing party can each deliver, and promises a public report card after 100 days. It commits to opening municipal books, auditing infrastructure and qualifications and publishing service repair times — things the party does not do in the coalitions it currently governs.
Daily Maverick’s review finds the housing and municipal-finance sections stronger than the rest, but flags gaps: the party has not ring-fenced water revenue in Johannesburg, where it is powerful, and its deputy leader Kenny Kunene has overseen transport and roads in the city. There is also no costed sanitation timetable or household target, and the anti-migrant Abahambe programme dominates the document.