ISSUE 248 - FREE
8
NOVEMBER 2019
COMMUNITY NEWS. ORIGINAL - ACCURATE - FIRST
017 631 1903 / 017 631 1845 • admin@thebulletin.co.za • 1 Kiewiet Street, Secunda (Lake Umuzi)
Interruptions again? An Eskom notice yet again! This creates the impression that payments are made according to plan but are in effect not the true up to date figures. The core problem is also not addressed by GMM. In July the Mayoral committee resolved: That it BE ACKNOWLEDGED that the municipality is losing approximately 50% in each Rand purchased from Eskom. This is a huge sum, one that the municipality can ill afford. The Bulletin spoke to Cllr Ciska Jordaan, Caucus leader of the DA regarding the pending disruption. “After querying the matter with the finance department of the municipality, the DA has learnt that the Municipal Manager has been engaging with ESKOM to negotiate for payment that would suffice avoiding the mentioned cut off. The MMC of Finance has communicated
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skom issued a notice to Govan Mbeki Municipality regarding pending disruptions of the power supply to Govan Mbeki Municipality (GMM). According to the notice there are two main accounts that are outstanding that should have been paid as part of the Eskom agreement. The letter by Eskom’s Middle Manager Customer Relations, Mr Chris Greg Lekhuleni was addressed to the current Municipal Manager of Govan Mbeki Municipality, Mr Felani Mndebele. The letter stated the following: I refer to the above matter and confirm that the Govan Mbeki Local
Municipality is in breach of the supply agreement entered into between Govan Mbeki Local Munic-ipality and Eskom in that your monthly accounts in respect of all accounts have not been settled in full. Eskom continues to put emphasis on the fact that GMM is not keeping to their promises. The GMM administration continues to table reports to council regarding the Eskom and Rand Water accounts. The report is detailed with figures regarding the payments and what the arrangement was. Unfortunately, the council item only reflects until September and not in October.
with confidence to the DA that the matter will be resolved through ongoing engagement with ESKOM,” said Ciska. “However, the DA remains concerned that the large amount demanded by ESKOM appears to be rather unrealistic when comparing to the average of R 22.5 million that the municipality has been able to pay over the last 9 months. Presumably, the municipality would negotiate to decrease the demanded amount to one that is payable.” Ciska continued: “Furthermore, the DA is troubled by the lack of political will with which the ANC-led municipality has been addressing the reasons for the consistent escalation of the ESKOM debt. The council is yet to receive the outcome of a water and electricity meter audit that was conducted from August to October this year, which is said to intend to rectify illegal connections and ghost vending within Govan Mbeki. Even though the report has not yet been made available to the council, it is difficult to understand why the municipality did not proactively rectify these contraventions on the spot during the audit. If they had, it would have been evident in the account that the municipality has been receiving monthly from ESKOM.” The Bulletin asked GMM for their response and received the following: “The Govan Mbeki municipality is currently in high level engagements with Eskom. We are confident that these engagements will yield positive results.” The embattled municipality will continue to struggle while the nonpayment of accounts continues.