Illegal connections cost municipality millions if not billions
One of the core purposes of the financial recovery plan was to improve revenue generation strategies
Emalahleni Local Municipality just can’t seem to juggle the balls.
Their Eskom debt has skyrocketed to over R4 billion.
It is not only Eskom tapping their feet for the money; it is also the Department of Water and Sanitation who wants the R230.5 million owed to them.
Member of Parliament and Democratic Alliance Mpumalanga spokesperson on the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Cllr Trudie Grové-Morgan called on the Mpumalanga government to place the municipality under administration after their financial recovery plan failed to yield positive results in the debt-ridden municipality.
“The DA will write to CoGTA MEC, Mandla Msibi, asking him to place the all the struggling municipalities under administration, and also ask him to set up a virtual meeting detailing his plans to improve the financial status of all the municipalities in the province.”
Instead of decreasing, the Eskom debt has crashed through the R4 million barrier.
“The municipality must be placed under and ring-fence ratepayers’ monthly electricity payments to be paid directly to Eskom and not to the municipality,” Grové-Morgan demanded.
One of the core purposes of the financial recovery plan was to improve revenue generation strategies.
The municipality’s financial recovery plan has eight focus areas which include amongst others strengthening governance issues, organisational restructuring, cleaning up the house with the help of the human resources department, service delivery, improving financial planning, and budget management. But the one focus point which causes the most headaches is illegal connections.
The municipality just can’t win the fight against illegal connections.
“Illegal connections are the leading cause of unplanned power outages. The network overloads and trips because it is carrying more users than what it was designed for. Illegal connections are the main cause of the failures of transformers and mini-substations. Furthermore, customers who are not paying for electricity tend to be wasteful in the way they use it‚” said municipal spokesperson Mr Lebo Mofokeng.
The municipality has decided that it will not be restoring power to areas that have repeated failures due to illegal connections until the community comes forward with a solution.
He explained that illegal connections are not reflected in the municipality’s electricity grid.
However, on the Eskom side, it is read as electricity usage coming from the municipality and it is billed accordingly.
That is one of the main reasons the municipality falls under a high payment sliding scale and is recognized as one of the biggest consumers in the province.
“The Red Ants will be mobilised from next week again to help the municipality in reducing illegal connections.”
Mofokeng urged businesses and individuals to help curb illegal electricity connections, infrastructure theft, and vandalism by reporting it anonymously via the municipality’s hotline: 0800 004 005.
