City of Cape Town under fire over misleading ‘lower rates’ claim
Cape Town has removed a “lower rates” social media claim following a complaint that it may have misled residents about the impact of rising property valuations.
Image: AI Generated
The City of Cape Town has removed a social media post claiming “lower rates are coming to Cape Town” after a complaint by the Cape Independence Advocacy Group (CIAG), which said the message misled residents about the likely impact of new property valuations.
The now-deleted post, seen by the Cape Argus, stated: “Lower rates are coming to Cape Town!” while noting a proposed 10.2% decrease in the residential rate-in-the-rand.
In a statement, CIAG co-founder Phil Craig said the City emphasised a reduction in the “cents in the rand” rate without explaining the effect of rising property valuations.
“Combined with the statement ‘Lower rates are coming to Cape Town’, this created the dominant impression that rates bills would decrease, when in fact, in most cases, they would actually increase,” Craig said.
CIAG said it conducted an analysis of the proposed changes, which indicated that homeowners with properties valued above R550 000 would likely face above-inflation increases in their rates payments.
Screenshot of the City of Cape Town’s X post stating “Lower rates are coming to Cape Town”, which was later removed.
Image: Supplied
The group said it had first raised its concerns with the City, addressing correspondence to the Executive Mayor and the Mayoral Committee Member for Finance, before escalating the matter to the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB), which it said initiated an investigation.
It said the City subsequently removed the post but did not issue a clarification or correction.
“Deleting a post does not correct the public record,” Craig said.
“Residents were told that lower rates are coming. If that claim cannot be substantiated, the City should apologise and issue a retraction.”
In response, the City of Cape Town said the post was not an advertisement but a standard social media post on the X platform.
“Part of the caption erroneously referred to ‘lower rates are coming’. This should have read ‘lower rates formula’, and the post was therefore removed to avoid any misperception,” the City said.
The City said the proposed 10.2% reduction in the rate-in-the-rand forms part of measures that will result in around 60% of residential property owners seeing a decrease or no change in their monthly rates bills, despite increases in property valuations.
It said the 17% increase refers to the total combined value of residential property, and that changes in property value do not directly equate to the same change in rates.
GOOD Party councillor Sandra Dickson said property rates are determined by both the rate-in-the-rand and the underlying property valuation.
“Property rates are not determined by the rate-in-the-rand alone. It is the product of two factors: the rate-in-rand and the underlying property valuation,” she said.
She said that if a property’s value increases by more than roughly 11%, the reduced rate would not offset the increase.
“The issue is the overall impression created by presenting that reduction in isolation,” she said.
The proposed changes are set to take effect from July 1.