Mbombela water supplier’s tariff increase considerably higher than council’s
Silulumanzi's water and sanitation tariff increased by 11%, while the CoM's only went up by 6%.
Residents of the city who receive services from Silulumanzi are paying almost 100% more than consumers serviced by the City of Mbombela.
The council recently approved a 6% increase for water and sanitation, while Silulumanzi increased its fees by 11%.
“This is against the law, and thus we have reported the matter to co-operative governance and traditional affairs [Cogta] for urgent intervention,” says Robert Dlamini, the DA’s caucus leader in the council.
According to him, the council is contravening the Municipal Finance Management Act with this decision.
ALSO READ: FF Plus demands heftier fines for power meter tampering under City of Mbombela
Both entities confirmed via their spokespersons, Joseph Ngala of the CoM and Richmond Jele of Silulumanzi, this week that an increase of 11% was implemented.
“The law clearly indicates that a municipality is not allowed to discriminate against any residents by charging different fees,” says Dlamini.
He said despite objections by the DA during the meeting in which the 2023/24 budget was approved, the ANC used its majority to push the decision through.
“As a private company, we cannot promulgate tariff increases independently,” says Jele.
The company submits a charge adjustment request as per the concession agreement between the two parties. According to Jele, the new charge is calculated by the CoM according to the tarrif escalation formula in the agreement.
ALSO READ: Furious action at Wolves Academy KFS Jock in Mbombela
“The tariff submission takes into consideration a baseline increase of 4.89% as per the agreement. The formula is based on cost drivers such as raw water, electricity cost, staff and chemical cost. The 11% increase in the concession areas is lower than what they proposed to charge. We had to convince them not to increase as per their service level agreement, which was around 14.5%,” says Ngala.
“We have not seen any correspondence from Cogta regarding the matter, because the council has already approved both Silulumanzi on concession and Mbombela on non-concession areas.”
