REFILWE MEKOA
Free State Development Corporation is allegedly one of the reasons Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality is in a R815 million debt.
According to Municipal Manager, Charles Taetsane, FDC was collecting electricity, rates and taxes from its tenants on behalf of the municipality but never gave the money to the municipality. He said it is one of the reasons Maluti-a-Phofung is in debt. Taetsane was answering questions at the Free State Legislature’s Public Accounts Committee meeting in Bloemfontein on Wednesday.
Taetsane said FDC allegedly offered to collect money on behalf of the municipality and supply it in bulk. On the other hand, Maluti-a-Phofung Mayor Vusi Tshabalala stated that they never had a written agreement with FDC to collect its revenue.
“FDC is responsible for its own property which is in the industrial site. While electricity is handled by the municipality and there is no way that money of electricity should have been paid through FDC. I don’t know that agreement and have never seen it but if there is such an agreement then we will have to correct it as we are the licence holder of the electricity,” he said.
Tshabalala added that that they will be meeting with FDC on Thursday, to discuss the debt issue. He explained that FDC owed the municipality a whole lot of money that he cannot disclose.
Meanwhile, Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality struggled to access their electricity billing software system for two months. According to Municipal Manager Chris Taetsane, it happened after they stopped working with electricity service provider company Rural Maintenance. He said it’s one of the reasons they couldn’t collect the R815 million debt from residents and businesses.
He said Rural Maintenance stopped working with the municipality from April this year till June and explains that the company was given a contract to be responsible for the municipality’s electricity billing system. Taetsane explained that during the time Rural Maintenance was working with them, it allegedly removed municipal meter boxes at residents’ houses and installed their own which created problems.
He said the municipality is reinstalling new municipal electricity meter boxes. In the meantime, Mayor Vusi Tshabalala added that Rural Maintenance and Free State Development Cooperation are the main reasons that the municipality is owing Eskom R520 million.
“Once Eskom wants its money we can’t tell them that the FDC has taken money from factories and the money didn’t reach us as the municipality. Those are the issues that are real and have been happening,” he said.
Tshabalala said they are paying Eskom R89 million per month as part of their payment plan to settle the debt. It has been reported that 60 percent of electricity connections in QwaQwa are illegal.
Meanwhile, Municipal Manager Chris Taetsane added that they hired seventy-three people who will be rectifying households that have illegal electricity connections. He explained that at least each person from the seventy-three employees will each visit fifteen houses each day.
