Concerned Rates and Tax Payer writes:
3500 new serviced stands will add another 17500kw of free power to the users on top of the already +- 500 000kw of free power utilized by communities in Vosman, KwaGuqa, Ferrobank, Hlalanikahle, Klarinet ext. 1 and 2 and to some extend Pine Ridge.
That is more than R1 000 000 of free power that currently gets subsidized by rates and tax payers since the government that decided to give this to the poor is not paying for it.
The current electricity network is already so old and undersized, it cannot even sustainably handle existing consumption regularly leading to power failures sometimes for days on end.
In most instances the ring feeders have been disconnected because of its state of disrepair. But the municipality wants to add even more load to this crippled network? Not to even mention the fast approaching doomsday of darkness when Eskom engage their threatened power cuts.
How can the municipality even consider new developments if they can’t even pay their current power bills? What is happening to the more than R200-million the municipality collects monthly from rates and tax payers just for rates and electricity – where is this money going to? Why does the municipality not pay their Eskom bills? When the household residents don’t pay their bills the municipally immediately cut their power – even for a debt of as little as R50, but they can accumulate bills in excess of R615-million and get away with it. Now they plead with the public to help them. Sorry Mr Acting Municipal Manager, sort out your own problems. And may I suggest you start by looking into some of the people that surround you daily, those municipal officials, those oxygen thieves that steal from the public they suppose to serve.
I wonder Mr van Vuuren, will you have the guts to make those figures known to the public. Secondly, get the government and semi governmental institutions to start paying their bills by immediately cutting their power supplies, and thirdly, go cut those illegal connections all round and keep cutting them on a daily basis until those who steal from us as rates and tax payers are no longer stealing. This is the only way to get your turn around strategy to start working. Work with the public, obtain their co-operation and much of your troubles will disappear.
Furthermore, the intended development will require an additional minimum 525 000 litres of drinking water daily. With the current condition of a fatigued water infrastructure which has already lead to the current user public being on water restrictions – how is this additional load going to be handled?
The new proposed development will also at minimum add another 400 – 500 kiloliter per day of sewage to the already defunct sewage plants of the city – of which most if not all are already overloaded to far beyond their design capacity whilst most of the city’s wastewater treatment plants operate at less than 25% of their design efficiency capacity – not to even mention the R64(M) Thubelihle white elephant WWTP brainchild of some municipal officials. All the municipal WWTPs discharge either directly or indirectly to Witbank Dam from where water is taken for purification to drinking water or like in the case of the Riverview WWTP it discharges directly into the Olifants River which is already more than 73% euthrophicated – meaning that it is so severely polluted with human sanitary waste it cannot even be used by farm animals anymore without extensive treatment.
The more we pollute our water sources, the more costly it become to purify and the higher the load on water treatment plant with subsequent operating cost hikes and equipment failures which again has to be shouldered by the rate and tax payers.
The new development will add immense elevated levels of demand on every discipline of infrastructure in the city. We already have some of the worse roads in the country, now you want to add another 3500 cars to the roads in many instances at least twice per day. The old Middelburg road and Eileen streets in Jackaroo Park will become so congested, people will spend hours in traffic getting to work and back.
Just imagine Geduld Bridge over the N4 during peak hours and multiply this by a factor of four – that is how congested these roads will become.
The current infrastructure in the city is too old to absorb this proposed development – it can’t even sustain current use let alone a huge impact as proposed. Rather come up with a priority infrastructure development and improvement plan for the entire city and put the upgrades in place for such development before even thinking of putting this proposal back on the public table.
If Eskom’s threat to cut the city’s power for even just 8 hours a day becomes reality, the municipality will incur law suits and claims for damages, security risks, increased levels of crime, etc. to millions of rands – even more than your current Eskom bill which will financially ruin the municipality – law suits to the constitutional court will be in the order of the day since you as municipality has grossly neglected your mandate and failed the public you’re suppose to serve, thus infringing people’s constitutional rights for which a dear price will have to be paid. Forget about the carrot of new development and get the wolf away from the door – that should be your highest and foremost important priority!
