POLOKWANE -“Prepaid electricity is already expensive and we do not think it is fair to make us pay an additional fee.”
Municipal prepaid electricity customers are confused as to why the municipality charges them on their municipal accounts for electricity when they use prepaid electricity.
“Prepaid electricity was introduced to help us cope, as we could not afford the high electricity bill every month. Through prepaid electricity we were able to control and manage the cost of our monthly electricity usage.
“Now prepaid is a nightmare, because it is more expensive than normal municipal electricity. When you buy prepaid electricity for R150 you only get 110 units, which is pathetic, because it does not even last two weeks. Even though we buy electricity, on our municipal accounts we are charged almost R100 for electricity, for what we do not know,” residents from Westenburg, Nirvana, Seshego, and downtown said.
Amount payable is for maintenance and provision – muni
Matshidiso Mothapo, a municipal spokesperson, said the amount payable is for maintenance of existing networks and for the provision of extra capacity. It is also used towards the provision of monitoring services of infrastructure to make sure there are minimum interruptions.
“Residents should be reminded that the municipality attends to all power problems in the city at no cost. Load shedding is also costing us more on maintenance of our switch gears.
“The municipality has considered socioeconomic factors to ensure the amount payable is well below inflation as the municipality is shouldering a huge part of what is required to address all the maintenance and future infrastructure investment in order to provide services to all,” Mothapo said.
According to Mothapo, new street lights are requested annually through prioritisation during the integrated development plan (IDP) processes.
“Currently we have just finished installing new street lights from corner Ben Harris to Ext 44 where the lights are not functional.
“The municipality has conducted public participation on this and other tariffs during its past IDP and budget consultation meetings. It should also be noted that the municipality does not determine tariffs for electricity purchase, this is done by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) and the municipality buys from Eskom,” Mothapo explained.
All electrical problems can be reported to the municipal electrical services at (015) 290 2490.
