Pay or we cut

Emalahleni Local Municipality is at the end of its wits with residents not paying their service accounts.
Despite positive reinforcement and relying on self discipline by consumers, the outstanding amounts owed to the municipality have actually increased while the average payment rate has decreased to 65 percent.

“Since May we managed to service our Eskom account and we are thankful to those who diligently service their account payments to the municipality,” said Mr Theo van Vuuren, acting municipal manager.

The municipality still need to pay R15million on the arrears account by October 31.

“When we entered into the payment agreement we owed R611 million and by the end of this month this will be reduced to R458 million. In this period we also paid our full monthly accounts and together with the secondary accounts and capital repayments we paid nearly R600 million over the past six months. We also still need to pay R12 million on secondary accounts by month end and our main account payable mid November will be around R60 million,” Van Vuuren said.

He said since Thursday, October 22 the municipality intensified their operation to encourage people to pay their arrears with a focus on especially businesses who owe a collective R230 million and also individuals on a municipal wide basis.

“We also discovered that the cut off lists are not reflecting all and there clearly has been collusion,” he said and in the same breath said this will be investigated and corrective actions will follow.
Van Vuuren warned residents to make payments in time. In the future they will be doing more regular cut-off operations.
“We will not always keep our offices open like we did this weekend to accommodate reconnections. The bylaws allow us 72 hours before we reconnect although to date we have tried to do it on the same day. This lenience is about to stop unless level of cooperation increases.”

Where people owing money or short paying have private arrangements with municipal staff that they will not be cut note that these arrangements carry no weight unless formally and produced in writing approved by an authorised manager in the municipality. Where you have such an informal arrangement, reconsider, in some cases this is fraudulent. Ensure that you get a written confirmation.

Where you stay in a rented unit or where part of the account (or in full) is paid by a body corporate, please communicate with the rental agent, land owner or body corporate to meet their obligations.
Don’t think you are safe when you have a prepaid meter in your home. Where you are behind on your other services but have a prepaid, note that all your accounts must be up to date. Even if you have units left on your prepaid your electricity will be cut unless you pay your other costs.

“Note that we do not give prior notice on an individual basis prior to disconnections. There have been sufficient notices in the press on this matter and avenues to enquire on account status. Especially where people and businesses have been avoiding payment and got away with it, don’t expect that we must warn you before action is taken,” Van Vuuren said.