KwaNokuthula community demands municipal action in seven days – or total shut down looms
Members of Plett’s KwaNokuthula community demanded a response – in action, not words – from Bitou Municipality to their memorandum of grievances, which was handed over to the municipal manager on March 4.
The “pain”, as they describe it, of receiving a minimum of electricity units propelled these citizens to march to the municipal offices in an effort to focus the attention of their local government on this matter – the gist of which is that when they buy electricity vouchers, they only receive half the total of units paid for.
The marchers claimed that the municipality failed to mitigate this electricity problem, which could benefit the poor. They said they had been struggling with the same issues since 2016, and that it had deteriorated this year.
The explanation from Bitou revolves around unpaid municipal accounts, i.e. when residents fail to pay their accounts, the unpaid money will be recuperated by the municipality when these residents buy electricity.
The community demanded the separation of electrical accounts from services like water and waste removal, “for it is killing us financially”.
March leader Buyile Tolom said the problem started when the current council endorsed the auxiliary policy, which allows Bitou to force residents to pay municipal accounts when they buy electricity.
Addressing the marchers outside the municipal offices, which were heavily guarded at the time, Tolom said: “The poorest of the poor are the direct victims of this business decision, so we are calling for the disbandment of the auxiliary policy.
“The council must scrap accounts to start from zero for all indigent communities, and we demand a separation of electricity from water and waste removal accounts.”
After signing the memorandum, municipal manager Lonwabo Ngoqo told the marchers he would table it before the council and that the municipality would respond within the given timeframe.
Failure to do so, according to march leaders, would result in a total shut down of Bitou.