Residents of the City of Johannesburg have expressed their frustration over the way in which the municipality works out their municipal rates and taxes.
The city is currently engaging property owners as part of its Rates Policy Review process.
The hearings started at Marks Park in Emmarentia, Johannesburg this week and in the next two months, the city will have further engagements in the rest of the metro.
This includes Midrand, Sandton, Alexandra and Soweto. Residents say the way the values of properties are calculated is absurd.
“How do we get to this mysterious phantom that the size from an arial photograph without looking at an actual structure what the value of my property is. There’s no way that my property can be valued 300 times than the normal value. What are you people smoking and drinking in your offices there? And once the municipality gets it in their heads that they want to charge you that rate, they do not reverse the rate,” says one resident.
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