Rates Squeeze
December 21, 2025
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Rising municipal rates and fixed charges are placing growing financial pressure on Mossel Bay households and businesses.
Your Rates, Your Voice
Here you can view summaries of all current issues and challenges Moss Rates is actively working on and investigating.
Rising municipal rates and fixed charges are placing growing financial pressure on Mossel Bay households and businesses.
Many ratepayers struggle to understand municipal bills due to fixed fees, VAT, and opaque billing structures.
Water supply risks are increasing as freshwater sources face overuse, pollution, and long-term planning failures.
Pollution of rivers and estuaries threatens ecosystems, public health, tourism, and downstream coastal environments.
Waste collection, recycling systems, and landfill management show growing signs of systemic failure.
Development approvals continue without matching upgrades to infrastructure capacity and long-term service planning.
Electricity infrastructure is under pressure from informal connections, rising demand, and increasing costs.
Organised ratepayer groups are increasingly excluded from meaningful municipal consultation and oversight.
Weak consequence management undermines accountability for financial misconduct and governance failures.
Municipal-linked non-profit entities raise concerns around transparency, governance, and public accountability.
Civic participation mechanisms often fail to provide meaningful public engagement or feedback.
Communities are frequently excluded from spatial planning and development decisions that affect them directly.
Deferred maintenance creates hidden infrastructure debt that future ratepayers will ultimately fund.
Service delivery continues to decline despite rising municipal costs and charges.
Environmental laws and regulations are inconsistently enforced, allowing degradation to persist.
Codes of conduct exist, but ethical breaches often lack enforcement or consequences.