Mossel Bay is booming, but the financial math behind this growth is deeply broken.
Our local municipality is aggressively pushing a political “Grow Agenda” to attract massive private estates and commercial parks. But when you look at the audited figures from the municipality’s own books over the last three financial years, a disturbing pattern emerges: the council is prioritising expensive corporate “wants” over actual ratepayer “needs.”
Look at the audited contradiction right out of the municipality’s own financial records:
1. What Private Developers Paid In (Total Cash Development Levies)
• 2023: R32.0 Million
• 2024: R29.4 Million
• 2025: R20.4 Million
• Total Developer Cash Collected (3-Year Total): R81.8 Million
Look at the trend: building approvals are hitting record highs, yet the cash collected from developers has plummeted by 36% since its 2023 peak.
2. The True Extent of Developer-Driven Bulk Inputs (Paid by Ratepayers since 2022/23)
To unblock land and provide utility capacity for these multiplying private developments, the municipality rolled out a massive wave of capital projects. Look at what these bulk networks actually cost to install over the exact same period:
⚡ Bulk Electrical Inputs: R122 Million
• R15,000,000 for the brand-new Aalwyndal (11/11kV) Electrical Switching Station and MV network upgrades. This infrastructure was built explicitly to service a speculative 7,000 to 10,000-unit mega-development in Aalwyndal — a project that is not even approved yet. The municipality spent millions of ratepayer Rands on electrical nodes for a project that exists only on paper.
• R90,000,000+ to overhaul the Intake Substation infrastructure and high-voltage grid frameworks to sustain massive incoming precinct loads.
• R17,000,000 to upgrade the Mossdustria 66-kV bulk power overhead line to handle industrial expansions.
💧 Bulk Water Storage & Pipelines: R141.9 Million
• R45,000,000 for the Vaale Vallei Reservoir (built to gravity-feed new private residential estates).
• R21,000,000 for the Louis Fourie Corridor Water Supply Project to open up capacity for the new commercial and housing corridor.
• R16,300,000 for the Sonskynvallei to Brandwag Link Pipeline to secure outer development zones.
• R15,200,000 for deep-trench gravity main pipelines connecting Vaale Vallei to new estate boundaries.
• R14,000,000 for the Sandhoogte Water Treatment Works refurbishment to artificially boost treatment limits.
• R9,800,000 for the Louis Fourie Corridor storage expansion.
• R9,700,000 for Great Brak and Glentana water treatment expansions and pipelines to handle dense coastal growth.
• R6,900,000 for the Vaale Vallei Bulk Water Pump Station.
• R4,500,000 for the Wolwedans Reservoir Supply Pipeline to feed high-density clusters.
🚽 Bulk Sewerage & Wastewater Inputs: R71.7 Million
• R71,700,000 in a single fiscal year peak just to expand bulk outfall sewer lines before downstream networks completely overloaded from rapid estate rezonings.
The Multi-Year Deficit: Where We Stand
The balanced math is devastating.
Over a three-year period, the total cash collected from developers amounts to R81.8 Million.
Yet the total bulk infrastructure inputs required strictly to support and unlock their developments climb to over R335 Million (excluding accepted solar initiatives).
Importantly, the R335 Million figure above likely understates the true cost of growth infrastructure materially.
The listed figures primarily reflect identifiable major bulk infrastructure projects directly visible within municipal capital expenditure records.
They do not fully account for:
• secondary and internal reticulation upgrades
• expanded road and stormwater infrastructure
• supporting pump stations and feeder systems
• future maintenance and replacement liabilities
• increased staffing and operational costs
• reserve depletion impacts
• financing and borrowing costs
• electrical load management expansions
• wastewater treatment stress and future upgrades
• or the long-term cost of sustaining a substantially larger urban footprint.
In reality, the total long-term infrastructure exposure associated with this accelerated growth agenda is likely substantially higher than the figures reflected here.
That means the true funding gap ultimately carried by existing ratepayers may be far worse than currently understood.
Who is paying the R253 Million+ funding deficit?
You are.
What makes this even more concerning is that ordinary households are now effectively being used as financial backstops for speculative growth.
The municipality keeps presenting growth as if every new estate automatically benefits existing residents. But growth only helps a town when the new developments fully pay for the infrastructure they require.
That is clearly not happening here.
If private developments were genuinely paying their full share, existing residents would not be facing:
• rapidly rising fixed monthly charges
• repeated above-inflation tariff increases
• worsening affordability pressures
• shrinking municipal reserves
• and escalating infrastructure borrowing and repayment obligations.
The financial evidence shows the opposite.
The municipality is socialising the costs of growth while privatising the profits.
Developers sell the properties. Developers bank the profits.
But the long-term maintenance, electricity networks, reservoirs, sewer systems, desalination risks, and replacement costs remain with the public forever.
That burden does not disappear after construction.
It stays on the municipal balance sheet for decades — and ratepayers ultimately carry it.
A Pattern of Reckless Spending: The Montagu Street Lesson
This is a clear pattern of a municipality buying things it wants instead of what the community needs.
Look no further than the controversial R30 Million Montagu Street office space purchase.
The town did not need to spend R30 million of public money on corporate office space, but they wanted to — and ratepayers are carrying the cost.
The exact same thing is happening with our utilities.
To fund these developer-serving inputs, the municipality has systematically drained our town’s cash reserves and slapped existing residents with punitive double-digit tariff hikes.
Worse, they implemented expensive fixed basic monthly charges for water, sewerage, and electricity.
You are legally forced to pay these fixed fees every month — even if you go solar or save water — just to keep the capital budget liquid enough to lay down bulk lines for private corporations and unapproved mega-projects.
Many residents are now asking a simple and reasonable question:
If Mossel Bay was financially and infrastructurally stable in 2022, why are residents suddenly paying so much more today?
In 2022:
• the town was functioning
• the lights stayed on
• water was available
• infrastructure reserves existed
• and rates and service affordability were materially better for ordinary households.
Yet despite massive new growth since then:
• household financial pressure has increased sharply
• fixed charges have exploded
• infrastructure stress has worsened
• water security risks have increased
• and more residents are struggling to afford municipal accounts.
That is not what sustainable growth is supposed to look like.
Real sustainable development improves the position of existing residents.
It should lower costs through scale efficiencies, strengthen reserves, improve infrastructure resilience, and increase affordability.
Instead, many residents feel they are being asked to finance growth that primarily benefits private developers and large expansion projects.
Where We Stand on the Solar Plants
To be completely fair, MossRates supports the two new municipal solar plants being built at the Hartenbos and Great Brak Wastewater Works to reduce reliance on Eskom and avoid load-shedding.
This specific capital spend is accepted provided that the financial benefits and savings from the power produced are passed directly down to the ratepayers — not swallowed up by the council.
However, building green energy does not excuse the fact that the actual water, sewer, and electrical grid expansions are being built for private estates using your money.
The Redundant 80ML Claim & The Raw Water Illusion
The municipality constantly boasts that the town can now deliver “80 Million Litres of water a day” as proof of great infrastructure.
But do not fall for the misdirection.
In 2022, our system could comfortably process 72.3 Million Litres a day, while our local usage was only 25 to 26 Million Litres.
Ratepayers had already fully funded a massive safety buffer.
Existing residents did not need a single drop of this new 80ML expansion — private developers did.
Furthermore, a pipe is useless without rain.
Doubling the number of houses tapping into our vulnerable dams creates an immediate ecological danger.
When the next drought hits, the dams will drop and those expensive 80ML a day infrastructure will sit empty.
The municipality will be forced to run the seawater desalination plant at full capacity.
Because the private developers will have already pocketed their profits and moved on, the astronomical electricity and running costs of desalination will be billed directly to you through emergency crisis tariffs.
The real danger is that infrastructure expansion is now running ahead of proven long-term water security and affordability.
Pipes, reservoirs, substations, and treatment works can all be built with borrowed money and tariff increases.
But raw water cannot simply be manufactured during drought conditions.
If growth continues aggressively while dam systems come under pressure, the municipality may eventually have no option other than permanent reliance on expensive desalination support.
That creates a serious long-term risk for residents because desalinated water comes at materially higher operating and electricity costs.
Once those systems become structurally necessary, the monthly cost burden does not fall on developers.
It falls on the ratepayer.
That is why many residents are no longer opposing development itself.
They are opposing irresponsible and financially unbalanced growth sequencing.
This Is a Failure of Good Governance
This is not sustainable development.
It is an unfair wealth transfer from local residents and retirees to private estate corporations.
Building a R15 Million switching station for an unapproved 10,000-unit scheme and spending R30 million on unneeded downtown offices proves that the “Grow Agenda” serves speculative corporate interests, not local ratepayers.
This is not anti-development.
MossRates supports responsible, properly funded, sustainable growth.
But growth must pay for itself.
Existing residents should not be financially prejudiced to subsidise speculative private expansion.
Our town belongs to the people who built it, maintain it, and pay for it every month — not to corporations seeking profit while shifting long-term infrastructure risks onto the public.
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