The eThekwini Municipality refuted claims that its Indigent Support Programme had collapsed.
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The eThekwini Municipality refuted claims that its Indigent Support Programme had collapsed after a councillor claimed thousands of applications from the poorest of the poor to access free basic services were lost, misplaced, or left incomplete.
The Indigent Support Programme protects residents facing genuine financial hardship by providing low-income and impoverished households access to free basic municipal services.
In a statement, Jonathan Annipen, an IFP councillor, said the municipality had failed in its duty to protect its poorest residents, accusing officials of mismanagement and neglect that resulted in widespread hardship.
He said the recent administrative shift of the programme from Operations Sukuma Sakhe (OSS) to the Revenue Management Unit in the 2025/26 financial year had merely exposed deeper, longstanding failures.
“The recent transfer of this function has not created the crisis, but has instead exposed the depth of systemic failure that had long been ignored."
He added that the Revenue Management Unit had inherited “the consequences of a broken and neglected system".
According to Annipen, the IFP uncovered that thousands of applications, some dating back to 2019, have been lost, misplaced, or left incomplete.
“This is not an administrative oversight, it is a reckless dereliction of duty."
He described the human impact as severe, claiming that tens of thousands of qualifying residents had been wrongly disconnected from essential services.
“These are pensioners, unemployed residents, and struggling families who did everything required of them, only to be abandoned by a system that was meant to protect them."
He further alleged that more than 5,000 applications submitted between 2021 and 2024 had either disappeared or remained incomplete.
Annipen also pointed to severe staffing shortages, noting that only one social worker was available to assess thousands of applications.
He warned that the consequences extend beyond immediate hardship, with some residents resorting to illegal connections to survive.
The IFP has called for an immediate stop to disconnections affecting indigent applicants and the reconnection of all qualifying households. The party also demanded additional staff to process applications and clear the backlog.
Annipen further called for a full forensic audit of all applications submitted since 2019 and accountability for those responsible.
Councillor Thabani Ndlovu, DA Whip for Finance, said they had warned the municipality about discrepancies in the indigent support system.
“The DA in eThekwini is not surprised at all by the shocking revelations that thousands of indigent support applications have been lost, and some outstanding for over five years. For years, the DA has warned that the city’s indigent support system is broken. Today, we are seeing the devastating consequences: pensioners without electricity, families without water, and vulnerable residents pushed deeper into poverty, not because they failed the system, but because the system failed them."
He said while residents followed every requirement, the city failed to process applications, protect records, and ensure access to basic services.
"This is unacceptable,” said Ndlovu.
In a statement, the municipality’s marketing and communications directorate denied claims that the program had collapsed.
"The Municipality wishes to clarify that the recent transition of the Indigent Support Programme function to the Revenue Management Directorate forms part of a broader effort to improve efficiency, accountability, and integration of services.
"While this transition has revealed historical backlogs and other related challenges, it has also created an opportunity to address these issues in a structured and sustainable manner,” said the city.
The municipality said investigations are currently being done into the claims that were made.
“An internal review is currently underway to assess the full extent of outstanding and incomplete applications, if any.
"Immediate steps are being implemented, including, reinforcement of assessment capacity through the allocation of additional personnel, prioritisation of outstanding applications, particularly those affecting vulnerable households, verification and restoration of services where pre-assessed applicants and beneficiaries services are disconnected and acceleration of plans to digitise records and modernise application tracking systems.
“With regards to service disconnections, the city’s policies are guided by both financial sustainability and social responsibility. Where errors are identified, immediate corrective action will be taken.
"eThekwini Municipality remains committed to providing beneficiaries with access to the Indigent Support Programme and those with an outstanding application are urged to approach their nearest Sizakala Centre so that their cases can be urgently reviewed and resolved.
"These will be done through the strengthened support structures that have been allocated to this programme."