LEON DE JAGER ESKOM CRISIS

LYDENBURG – In response to the electricity crisis facing Thaba Chweu Municipality, Mr Leon de Jager of the Lydenburg/Mashishing Business Chamber wrote a letter to the senior advisor at Eskom addressing several aspects with regard to the possible disconnection.

Eskom recently served TCM with a notice of disconnection of bulk electricity supply for an outstanding account of R146 million.

This notice, issued in terms of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 2000, (Act 3 of 2000) was sent to the municipality two weeks ago.

TCM now has to provide the service provider with written comments indicating why Eskom should or should not proceed with the proposed disconnection of bulk supply to the municipality by October 11.

In the letter De Jager said it was indeed a sad day for the town, upstanding business community and residents of Lydenburg and Mashishing to have been informed of Council’s failure to honour its obligation to Eskom with regard to the regular payment of its account.

“We, the business community and residents of Lydenburg and Mashishing are ‘angry’ with Eskom. Why did you allow this situation of non-payment to escalate to the point where TCM owe you in excess of R146 million before you decided to take action? If you had taken action previously, we would like to hear about it, as it was not brought to our attention.”

De Jager also said that Eskom owed the businesses and residents an answer as to what it had done in order to assist TCM. “You should be well aware that most councils are unable to manage their revenue base (their billing systems) properly and are losing hundreds of thousands of rand by either not billing all consumers,or incorrect billing and through poor credit control.

You should also be aware that most business and residents honour their monthly obligations and pay their monthly municipal accounts in time and in full. By disconnecting the power supply to TCM, you will in fact be punishing the innocent. How could you live with that?” he asked.

He also said the chamber would like to urge the power company to work with them in order to establish a joint committee, representing the chamber, Eskom, selected representatives of TCM and the provincial government, as well as provincial or national representatives of Salga and Cogta, who could work together to investigate the root cause(s) of the non-payment by TCM in order to come up with a plan or strategy to ensure monthly payments to the utility.”

We also need to establish what assistance TCM needs administratively and financially in order to provide financial stability within TCM. We are of the opinion that if this matter is not addressed and managed properly, this will remain a recurring problem to Eskom and the affected towns’ business and residents.”

De Jager also suggested that, as a short term solution to resolve the arrear account of TCM, Eskom could negotiate with national and provincial treasury that all government grants payable to TCM be reallocated to its power account until such time as it is up to date.

“It should also be made a prerequisite by the treasury departments that the council’s Eskom account be up to date before any grants are paid to councils. TCM has budgeted to receive grants of R 143 million for their 2013/14 financial year. Paying these grants to Eskom will go a long way towards settling TCM’s account.”

De Jager said he hoped their “input” would be seen as positive and they were looking forward to hearing from them.