South Africa may be in for a dark Christmas

Freedom Front Plus

South Africa may be in for a dark Christmas
South Africa may be in for a dark Christmas

South Africa may be in for a dark Christmas due to the maladministration of various municipalities and the fact that they are not honouring their payment agreements with ESKOM, says Wouter Wessels, FF Plus member of the Free State Provincial Legislature.

After a joint financial committee meeting in parliament, Wessels said that ESKOM is facing bankruptcy due to maladministration and the fact that municipalities have so much outstanding debt with the electricity supplier.
According to the National Treasury, the proposed electricity price hike of 19% is the only solution to the problem.

He says that clearly municipalities in South Africa are not sustainable and that a lack of funding is not the cause of the problem, but rather poor management and the lack of political will.

“The proposed electricity tariff hike that ESKOM has applied for with The National Energy Regulator (NERSA), will only result in increased non-payment and will eventually cause severe impoverishment.

“The FF Plus feels that it is unfair and unacceptable that paying electricity consumers are being punished through unreasonable tariff hikes as a result of ESKOM’s mismanagement.

“Many municipalities are currently implementing load shedding due to their non-payment to ESKOM and many others, that are not honouring their payment agreements, will find themselves in the dark quite soon as well.

“South African municipalities owe their creditors more than R43 billion. Municipalities’ outstanding debt amounts to R128 billion and the state owes municipalities R7 billion. More than half of the municipalities that indicate a surplus do not to honour their payment agreements with ESKOM.

“Municipalities simply have no political will nor the ability to effectively manage their funds, to collect debt and to effectively use money earmarked for infrastructure projects. Municipal managers and officials guilty of malpractices also get away with it.

“Another shocking fact is that the government owes municipalities nearly R7 billion, of which R363 million is owed to Emfuleni (Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark) and R362 million to Mafikeng in the North West. The government itself is therefore actively adding to the country’s municipal dysfunction.

“Dihlabeng (Bethlehem, Paul Roux, Rosendal, Fouriesburg), Mantsopa (Ladybrand, Tweespruit), Moqhaka (Kroonstad, Viljoenskroon, Steynsrus) and Nketoana (Reitz, Petrus Steyn, Lindley, Arlington) are some of the municipalities that are not honouring their signed payment agreements with ESKOM at all. Others include Modimolle and Mookgopong (Limpopo), Phokwane and Nama Khoi (Northern Cape), Naledi and Kgetelengrivier (North West), Albert Luthuli and Govan Mbeki (Mpumalanga), and many more.

“The ANC and the management of these municipalities are obviously not serious about fulfilling their significant roles. They are supposed to give tax payers value for their money by ensuring that there is proper management, service delivery and maintenance of infrastructure.

“All these things do not happen because cadres are plundering the state purse. The lack of political will to address mismanagement, incompetency, cadre deployment and the ANC’s carelessness in general has taken its toll on local government and the subsequent damage is becoming more and more evident,” says Wessels.

Read the original article by Wouter Wessels on the FF Plus website

South Africa Today – South Africa News

SOURCEFreedom Front Plus