A municipality acting out its rights - 40 days
Teresa Opperman
Cradock and Middelburg residents have been without electricity for almost 41 days (today) and counting. This is after the Inxuba Yethemba Municipality (IYM) aggressively persists with disconnecting and blocking residents’ municipal electricity supply since 2 February. This was apparently done without prior individual written account letters warning residents of alleged outstanding arrears.
On 6 February MPL Kobus Botha, the DAs constituency head for EC Midlands, went to see ANC MEC Zollie Williams at the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature in Bhisho, to discuss the matter. He also sent a written memorandum with the residents' grievances to him. On 27 February, Botha received a reply to his enquiry with regard to the electricity disconnections and blockages of electricity to certain wards in Cradock and Middelburg from Williams.
Williams said that municipalities are in their right to inflict the Municipal Systems Act to recover debt from all the consumers who benefit services from municipalities. He said that IYM is not outside their legal requirement. “There is an empowering legislation before the credit control legislation. For the IYM to function, they must have access to funds from the consumers to whom the municipality delivers services. All who can afford to, that is beyond the threshold adopted by the government, must pay for services,” said Williams. He also stated that residents were offered to pay for their account and make arrangements to pay but ignored the request by the municipality. He made it clear that this arrangement excludes indigent residents. He also stated that according to the credit control act of the municipalities, if you ignore making such arrangements, the municipality has the right to use electricity as a leverage to force you as a consumer to pay for services. He said what the IYM is implementing is in line with credit control policy and the empowering legislation in terms of the Systems Act. He also said that his challenge is to regard IYM as if it is a municipality whom the auditor general has audited with an unqualified audit report with findings.
“If the auditor general says it is unqualified, everyone knows what that means,” said Williams during the parliamentary sitting. Botha requested Williams to meet him to address the IYM problem, but the MEC didn't react to Botha’s demand.
Petrus Plaatjies, who speaks for the Michausdal Ratepayers Association, says their town is still facing a big problem. “Lots of folks are trying hard to gather the money to pay their bills, but the municipality won't accept partial payments. They turn people away if they don't pay the full amount owed. Even down payments are not allowed,” Plaatjies explains. “I've been trying to talk to the municipality's board about this, but they haven't agreed to a meeting yet. I want to share our thoughts and work out a plan to fix this problem as soon as possible.” Plaatjies adds that the community is upset because residents in Lingelihle’s wards 1, 2, and 3 haven't paid any rates or taxes for the past 30 years, yet their electricity hasn't been cut off. He mentions that these wards get their electricity directly from Eskom.
On Thursday, 7 March, the Advertiser visited Cradock to talk to residents affected by electricity blockages. It was clear that there are different groups with conflicting views:
Some residents who have fully paid their bills are upset. They don't want those who haven't paid in full to get electricity. They support the municipality during this crisis and know which households are without electricity. Another group sees it as their personal problem and don't want to discuss it. They're upset that others know they don't have electricity and are talking about it in public. They don't want to be labeled as non-payers and many are trying to raise the money they owe.
Some residents have raised some money but couldn't pay the full amount to the municipality. According to them, the municipality doesn't accept partial payments on overdue bills. There are those who could apply to be registered as indigents. Some of them could get their electricity back on within hours after registering. Many of them live with children who didn't pay their bills, but their parents could register as indigents to get the electricity back on.
According to residents the last group is from Lingelihle, where no payments have been made and no electricity is blocked. “They could point out families facing blockages but consider themselves lucky not to be in a similar situation,” says a resident.
The correspondent of the Advertiser
experienced the feelings of the people of Cradock, where harsh words and angry outbursts among the different factions eventually gave way to a full-blown argument.
The current situation is an explosion waiting to happen and the correspondent had to be escorted out of this situation by her husband when emotions flared up.
Also read other articles regarding this issue on www.graaffreinetadvertiser.com:
Cradock-betogers kry toegang tot munisipale gebou, 13 Februarie 2024
Inwoners ontstoke oor afsny van elektrisiteitstoevoer, 5 Februarie 2024
No power: 20 days and counting,
22 Februarie 2024
“They turn people away if they don’t pay the full amount owed.”