Polokwane Municipality ready for energy input from private plants
The municipality is currently owed about R244m by government departments, which accounts for 13% of the debt book while businesses owe R396m.
POLOKWANE – Polokwane Municipality is ready to accept energy input into its grid from private generators, bringing it in line with other municipalities that have already taken the step.
In order to ensure the safe and orderly installation of these generation plants, the city’s Small Scale Embedded Generation (SSEG) policy was adopted during the council’s October meeting and it, amongst others, provides guidance on the types of systems that are approved for installation and connection to the municipality’s grid. It further allows for the feedback into the municipality’s grid and compensation for feeding electricity into the system under controlled conditions.
According to the spokesperson for the municipality, Thipa Selala, consumers who want to partake in supplying electricity into the municipality’s grid must be registered with the municipality as SSEG plants.
“The council approved an amnesty period of six months for registration of SSEG plants, after which period a penalty would be levied on a non-registered plant,” Selala added. At the same meeting, the local authority approved other milestone items that are geared towards improving service delivery, planning and strengthening its capacity. Some of the key decisions include reviewing of council’s rules of order, strengthening of its financial flow through revenue collection from government and business, human settlement plan, integrated transport plan and granting of extension of the conditional debt incentive scheme.
The municipality is currently owed about R244m by government departments, which accounts for 13% of the debt book while businesses owe R396m. The municipality has started with termination of services for both government and business properties and has established an inter-governmental forum through the Department of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (Coghsta) to implement stricter measures to collect within this sector.
Council has also approved the extension of applications for the debt incentive scheme by one month until 30 November to companies with more than one director, trust accounts, churches and related institutions. The incentive scheme was adopted to encourage customers to settle their accounts with an incentive.
In pursuance of an initiative by the provincial government, the municipality has approved the request to the city to host a delegation from Zhengzhou City, the capital of Henan in China to share economic opportunities and possibility of twinning agreements that may enhance development of the area. In paving the path to a metro, the municipality has adopted its Comprehensive Integrated Transport Plan as a guiding policy and planning document for all transport planning in the city over the five-year period. The plan comprehensively addresses the strategic transport objective plans. It further outlines the context within which the city’s transport system should be planned.
