Is there light at the end of the tunnel for Govan Mbeki residents?
Govan Mbeki Municipality made a request to Eskom in April to increase the NMD, however Eskom declined due to GMM’s non-payments of their Eskom accounts and their non-compliance to honour their agreement re-payment agreement to Eskom.
BETHAL – Bethal and eMzinoni residents’ electricity woes may soon see some relief, but only if Govan Mbeki Municipality coughs up R95-million to Eskom.
This came after a meeting was held on Tuesday, 15 September, between the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), SALGA, the Auditor General, IDS and the DA.
The payment of the money, and approval of council would mean that Bethal’s NMD (notified maximum demand) will be upped to 32MVA from its low and current 18.72MVA.
eMzinoni would see an increase to 13MVA from the now 8MVA.
Govan Mbeki Municipality made a request to Eskom in April to increase the NMD, however Eskom declined due to GMM’s non-payments of their Eskom accounts and their non-compliance to honour their agreement re-payment agreement to Eskom.
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According to the CFO of the municipality, Mr Bongumusa Sithole, R95-million in total has been paid to Eskom. The municipality expects that Eskom will therefore increase the NMD towards Bethal and eMzinoni to avoid the current imposed load shedding.
It was also said that R27-million will be paid towards Eskom for eMbalenhle to achieve the same goal.
DA councillor, Ms Ciska Jordaan said: “The DA is highly concerned about a number of issues surrounding the electricity in Bethal, eMzinoni and eMbalenhle.
“Even though the R95-million is paid in order to increase the NMD, the infrastructure if the town remains in a dilapidated state. While the GSDM has committed its assistance, a recent IDP consultation with councillors of the Govan Mbeki Municipality has revealed that the GSDM is only setting aside R2-million for the repair and upgrade of infrastructure in Bethal and eMzinoni.
“This is not nearly enough to deal with the constant outages that residents experience because of blown up transformers, cable faults and other electrical problems, which has contributed to the imposed loadshedding in the first place.
“In addition, it is critical to realise that the R95-million and the R27-million are paid from the equitable shares that the municipality receives from the national treasury to fund a large part of its annual budget.
“This means that out of a total of R141-million of the unconditional grant that was given, once all these payments to Ekom has been made, only R19-million from the equitable shares will remain for maintenance and service delivery to the whole of the municipality for the remainder of the financial year.”
Ms Jordaan said that this is a massive red flag that warns of other problems popping up in the near future.
Also read: Legal action against GMM, Gert Sibande District Municipality and Eskom is still continuing
“Even though these payments have been made to Eskom, the municipality still owes the service provider billions while the institution’s financial position makes it impossible to pay. In August the municipality lost 75 per cent of the electricity procured from Eskom to unpaid accounts, bridging, ghost vending and illegal connections.
Should these massive losses continue while the municipality’s debts are also escalating, it is unthinkable that the municipality will be able to even function at all for much longer.
“As a party that believes in honesty and transparency, the DA will continue to inform residents of the developments that take place in the council. We will also continue to hold the ANC executive mayor, Ms Thandi Ngxonono, accountable for the non-viable state that this incompetent municipality is in,” ended Ms Jordaan.
While the battle continues with GMM on what needs to be paid to who, where and when, Becs (Bethal and eMzinoni Community for Services) is still going full steam ahead with legal action against GMM and Eskom.
Mr Ziyaad Dangor of Becs, said: “This is the only long term solution to end Bethal and eMzinoni’s lack of service delivery challenges.”
Also read: Executive mayor blames electricity theft for Govan Mbeki Municipality’s struggle to pay Eskom
