Huge trust and revenue challenges await new Municipal Manager
ELM’s new Municipal Manager, Lucky Leseane, officially started work this week - confronted by a swathe of power supply and revenue generation issues, largely inflicted by the municipality on itself and which now directly threaten its existence.
However, partnering with key stakeholders such as business and civil society and introducing ethical governance and respect for the Rule of Law,
will offer Leseane avenues to manage the situation and eventually turn it around, says organised business. Revenue losses and costs already
amount to over R120 million from the disastrous ending of ELM’s smart meter programme (considered the most profitable and advanced in Gauteng) and widespread failure to pay service providers are but two immediate governance crises confronting Leseane.
At the top of a long list is when ELM will pay back its predatory and exorbitant power tariff increases of up to 21%. These were set aside by a Gauteng High Court order last year, after action by the Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) late 2019.
The increases were gained belatedly and under false pretences by former ELM acting Municipal Manager, Dithaba Oupa Nkoane, through energy regulator Nersa. Some estimates place this tariff repayment process cost at as much as R250 million.
And with trust in ELM at rock bottom, Leseane will need to make relationship-building and stakeholder engagement a top priority of his administration, in addition to reversing chronic maladministration and almostzero productivity of ELM employees, according to organised business.
Under partial administration – or blatant provincial misrule and political interference according to political insiders from all parties – by Gauteng Province, ELM must now, under a permanent Municipal Manager, make it’s Financial Recovery Plan (FRP) finally work or face collapse.
“People and business from both townships and suburbs have lost all confidence in ELM’s administration and intense anger is building rapidly against the municipality from all quarters,” says Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) CEO, Klippies Kritzinger.
Kritzinger has urged Leseane to engage with the GTCoC as a matter of priority and was expected to meet with Leseane this week already, sources claim.
Leseane will also be confronted by huge challenges in the meter replacement programme, initiated with disastrous consequences by Nkoane last year in a botched attempt to replace smart meter revenue. Communities which supported the BXCSA smart meter programme are now resisting the meter replacements and have been joined by ERPA (Emfuleni Ratepayers Association). Kritzinger has also called on the ELM to clarify Nkoane’s present position at the municipality, saying that paying two officials doing the same function – regardless of whether ELM or Provincial Government pays – was completely unacceptable.
