‘Dirty Dozen’ ELM Councillors spared power cuts but not residents
Residents and business are enraged about illegal ELM power cut-offs due to alleged non-payment, whilst the municipality ignores account arrears amounting to hundreds of thousands of Rands by a “Dirty Dozen” clique of councillors.
The Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) now demands a total moratorium on resident and business electricity cut-offs until the municipality can comply with relevant laws and procedures.
The “Dirty Dozen” (12) councillors owe their own municipality at least R355 010.28 (as of early August) and is suspected to comprise top political office-bearers who are breaking the Law by not paying their accounts.
An ELM spokesperson confirmed the amount owed by the “Dirty Dozen”. Yet ELM last week started cutting hundred of residents and businesses “illegally and unprocedurally”.
But many more of the scores of councillors now sitting may owe even more money to ELM – over which they make key policy decisions such as cutting power supply – because the “Dirty Dozen” were identified from a control group of only 32 councillors, less than half of all councillors.
The GTCoC is now demanding an indefinite power cut halt for resident and business account holders until ELM is in a position to implement the law and best practice procedures such as dispute resolution.
The GTCoC also demands a full investigation and disclosure of account arrears by ELM councillors so the delinquents can be publicly “named and shamed” and forced to pay before elections.
A high-level crisis meeting is expected this week between GTCoC CEO Klippies Kritzinger and acting ELM Municipal Manager Thabo Ndlovu to discuss the issue and also the highly-controversial R11 million per month security contract of the ailing municipality.
“ELM must immediately disclose without delay all names and whether the Dirty Dozen include the Mayor, the Mayoral Committee and the council Speaker.
The cut-off crisis has deepened as ELM refuses to disclose names of the Dirty Dozen, whose existence was revealed by a Vaalweekblad investigation.
“It’s name and shame time for those politicians who illegally exploit the system aided by senior ELM officials and shamelessly order the municipality to cut residents and business illegally just to make up funds for their own salaries,” said Kritzinger.
Kritzinger said the municipality had no account dispute resolution committee in place as required by law and ELM rates were also illegal due to a High Court rejecting exorbitant tariff increases in 2019. ELM also did not give residents the full required 10 days notice before cutting.
