Half a million rand to ‘explain’ power tariff

THE SOL Plaatje Municipality appointed two service providers at a cost of almost half a million rand to inform city residents about the proposed electricity tariff.

The city council agreed to hold the basic charge of R260 per month in abeyance following unprecedented protests by community members which brought the city to a standstill.

The appointment of the public relations company is included in the list of deviations included in the agenda of this month’s city council meeting, which failed to meet following a DA-led motion of no confidence in the executive mayor, Mangaliso Matika, and a subsequent high court ruling that he must vacate his office until the matter has been finalised later this month.

According to the report on deviations, a company, Cherry Green Media, was appointed at a cost of R199 890.90 to “disseminate the correct budget information and ancillary matters specifically around electricity tariffs”.

In the motivation, it was stated that it “had become apparent that the community of Sol Plaatje had been misinformed about the upcoming budget, specifically on electricity tariffs”.

“Certain members of the public and interest groups took it upon themselves to miscommunicate the Nersa-instructed domestic tariffs review, as per the budget approval report,” the motivation states. “It became urgent and critical that the municipality embarks on a mass communication exercise beyond our existing efforts to urgently correct the inaccurate information being spread.”

According to the report, the intention was to use various media platforms, develop content and assist management on the best way to put forward proper and easy to follow messages.

“This is done to communicate and inform the public so that they can make a choice and follow the effects and benefits of the new electricity tariff structure.”

The matter was described as an exceptional circumstance “as it was not foreseen that there would be such a misdirection of the facts and has resulted in many of our community being misled or confused”.

“This has not only caused discontent within our community but threatens the municipality’s ability to recover the cost of distributing electricity to the community.”

By the time the motivation had been signed on July 6, the work had already been done.

The second contract was awarded to The Print Zone at a cost of R241 500. This was for the “development and printing of various pamphlets for the mass media campaign on the correct interpretation and implementation of electricity tariffs for 2018/19”.

The motivation was again described as being part of the “mass media campaign of setting the record straight” with regards to the domestic/residential electricity tariffs. The aim of the campaign was to support the public meetings intended to clarify the tariffs and five different messages were developed for the purposes of knock and drop at every household.

“The Print Zone was approached to print 300 000 A3 sized flyers, with about 60 000 flyers per message, and were authorised for delivery on Monday (June 25), by 6am, targeting people travelling to work and throughout the day up to June 27.”

It was pointed out in the deviation, that the supplier still needed to register on the municipality’s financial system.