City open to talks on power incentives
DURBAN’S city officials are making no promises on a proposal to introduce incentives for businesses who cut back on electricity use during peak hours, but they are willing to talk.
Krish Kumar, the head of Treasury at the eThekwini Municipality, declined to make any commitment to a proposal from Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive officer, Dumi Cele, that the city was considering offering an incentive to businesses who committed to cutting back on their electricity usage in peak hours.
“When there is an incentive, someone has to pay… I am not closing my mind to it. I know we have to create space to grow the economy. But we would have to consult as to who would pick up that tab,” he said.
Cele said the electricity crisis in the country was “hurting” business, with massive losses in production during power outages. “Those businesses installing alternative energy should not be penalised by the city. The city should not see that as a loss to them. If we can’t help business to do business in the city, then we can’t grow this economy. We have to look at the bigger picture.”
Load shedding, according to Kumar, had cost the city R120 million to date. Kumar, who was consulting with the chamber on the metro’s 2015/16 medium-term budget, said he also wanted to talk to businesses with a view to developing a more “structured” plan for the development of green-field sites. Responding to a concern that the city took its time connecting up services at new development sites, Kumar said developers were generally not giving the city enough notice to allow for timeous bulk water and electricity supply connections. “We have to do this in a more structured way. We also have to talk to business to see how they can contribute to development costs, such as the building of roads.”
Kumar was dismissive of business concerns that services for businesses in the city were more expensive than in either Gauteng or Cape Town.
“When you put together the whole basket of services for business, we are about R90 more expensive than Cape Town. There is nothing in it,” he said.
With a proposed rates increase of 6.9%, Kumar said the metro’s revenue stream was more restrictive than either Cape Town or Johannesburg.
“In Cape Town, they have a million rateable properties. In Durban, we have 580 000 and 8million people living in the city, of which 400 000 live in informal settlements,” he said.
Cape Town’s population, according to South Africa’s 2011 census, is at 3.74 million.