Major electricity losses for KDM

KwaDukuza Municipality seems to be stuck in quicksand and it is sinking deeper and deeper.

The under-spending of capital budgets (R221m) and the huge electricity losses of (R61m) have raised grave concerns amongst opposition councillors.

The Auditor General’s report has shown a continuous increase in the KwaDukuza municipality’s technical and non-technical losses over the past five years.

When this electricity loss figure was announced at a special council meeting in October, the DA requested that council place this as a standing item on the next Exco meeting agenda, to monitor and make necessary intervention.

During the energy workshop attended by councillors and officials on November 25, the municipal manager was tasked to establish a special task team to deal with this issue. The team will meet weekly and submit a progress report to Exco on a monthly basis.

Furthermore the team will be assisted, when necessary, by the crime prevention unit when inspections are needed to check on factors contributing to the losses. Theft of electricity, illegal connection, faulty metering, lengthy power outages and inefficient meter reading are some of the monitored issues.

The DA has continuously asked for an anonymous hotline to be created to allow reporting of illegal connections and other matters, without the fear of being victimised or treated as a snitch. To this date, nothing has been done about this.

Also, the quarterly report July-September showed that the overtime budget could be over-run by close to R3 million. Once again, the DA raised concern about the need to monitor employees, as some are receiving a double salary and are not adhering to the stipulated 30% threshold.

The most worrying is continuous under-spending.

The DA pointed out at the meeting of council that the combination of under spending and roll-over of funds are leading to much needed projects and basic services being denied to communities.

“As council, we are failing our mandate and officials are not doing their jobs,” said DA caucus leader Cllr Madhun Sobram Sing. He added that it was time to heed Minister of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Pravin Gordon’s advise, “Get back to basics.”

“It is an easy request, get the simple things right and everything else will come right too.

“Something is rotten in this municipality, if heads have to roll so be it in the interest of council and the community. We must not pretend all is well as we sink into deeper crisis,” said Sing.