I REFER to the article “DA takes Municipality to court” (Paarl Post, 25 June 2009) and the letters from councillor Thomas du Plessis (Paarl Post, 2009 July 2) and Ms May Carolissen (Paarl Post, 2009 July 17) - and would like to point out that the DA was right. Property tax has gone up exorbitantly.
I am sure that I am not the only person who has experienced an increase of 71,66% in property tax - a far cry from the advertised and much debated average increase of 7,5%.
I wonder whether councillors JT Basson and Thomas du Plessis would mind publishing their calculations – perhaps providing an average increase per area (Courtrai /Central Paarl/Den- neburg/Mbekweni/Newtown/Chicago etc) and not simply an average for the whole Drakenstein area.
The DA may be using the increase in property valuation for political gain, but the Municipal Council appears to have used the same as a cash cow and/or for political gain (applying excessive rate increases to certain areas to enable a reduced or negative rates increase for their support base).
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that this type of “bribery” has been used to attract support (I refer to a previous report in the Paarl Post that more than R50 million in bad debts were written off a month or two preceding a by-election).
Tyrone
