New Municipal Taxes Are Not The Answer

There is nothing innovative about the proposals for a new municipal funding model because they represent just a new page in the bottomless volume of options of taxation servitude while ignoring the remedies free enterprise offers (The Mercury, January 13).
The idea that municipalities charge their own taxes should be terrifying. Giving political parties “a creative licence” to add new avenues of revenue is madness considering their inability to manage the funding already at their disposal. It is even more alarming when one considers the ANC’s inability to manage its own finances.
Attracting and welcoming tourists, being grateful for their revenue and then discriminating against them by charging an infrastructure levy is disingenuous. Why should a tourist have to shore up infrastructure maintenance because of a municipality’s poor financial management? Given the DA’s pro-free enterprise stance, it is surprising that Chris Pappas sees merit in such a levy.
In any case, as the great economist Milton Friedman pointed out, once imposed, taxes are seldom eliminated. Indeed, as experience shows, they are incrementally increased. General Sales Tax (VAT) started at 4% in 1978. If a levy is placed on the enterprise of those who augment their electricity needs through solar power, it is a racing certainty that such a levy will increase incrementally in time.
Centralisation of control over resources is a basic aim of totalitarianism. To reduce the financial albatross borne by municipalities which the ANC’s socialist, centralisation policies have produced, there are two obvious solutions: reduce staff and outsource services where possible.
Since 2012, the size of eThekwini’s staff employment has doubled while its budget has more than tripled in size. Yet services and infrastructure have deteriorated, debt has mushroomed, and rates and tariffs have become unaffordable for many. An ongoing experience for areas like Tongaat and Trenance is either no water or only an intermittent supply.
By outsourcing services such as cleansing, parks and gardens, road maintenance, public transport, and getting rid of burdens like uShaka, vast sums of money can be saved on equipment and staffing
New taxes are not the answer. Watch how Trump and Musk go about curing debt and inefficiency with their new Department of Government Efficiency.