The Potchefstroom-based JB Marks Local Municipality in the North West has conceded that almost 90% of its residents in Ventersdorp have bridged (illegally connected their electricity) their meters for over 10 years, resulting in their Potchefstroom neighbours paying for the similar services.
This was confirmed by the Municipal Manager Kgomotso Kumbe, who told YOU FM Newshour that this has ‘apparently, allegedly’ been encouraged by the former executive mayor of the now defunct Ventersdorp Local Municipality.
“A brief background is that about 10 years back or so, in an erstwhile Ventersdorp Local Municipality, we had an instance where the municipality did not have a replacement meters so when community members report their faulty meters ‘apparently, allegedly’ they were told to bridge the meters just to keep the lights on,” alleged Kumbe.
When probed further as to who advised the residents to ‘bridge’ their electricity meters, Kumbe said that it was the late former Mayor of the Municipality.
“Like I said, apparently allegedly by the then executive mayor, may her soul rest in peace and then it somehow became free for all when people even when their meters were not faulty they then started bridging.
So, I can confirm that almost 90% or so of residents of Ventersdorp have their meters bridged and as a result they are not purchasing electricity, so we want to correct that anomaly,” said Kumbe.
The Municipal Manager has also acknowledged that the community of Potchefstroom was justified in complaining about paying for electricity while others were consuming the services for free.
“That’s correct and one would not actually dispute the statement of fact that it’s like one section which is the Potchefstroom community that is footing the bill of electricity.
Secondly to your question as to how soon we expect this programme to be completed, we are looking at a maximum period of three-months.
That is if everything goes according to plan because we are targeting not only the households but farming community as one would understand that Ventersdorp area is predominately made up of the farming community,
We are also targeting business as well as township and villages,” Kumbe explained.
The municipality was scheduled to commence with the replacement of the electricity split pre-paid meters on Monday 18th but the programme was halted due to complaints from the community that they were not informed on time.
“The replacement of the split pre-paid meters is anticipated to follow a phased approach, beginning with homes of municipal councillors, followed by municipal employees, and subsequently extended to the general members of the community, including local businesses, including taverns.
This initiative forms part of the municipality’s ongoing efforts to improve service delivery and promote responsible energy usage.
The way we wanted to roll out this programme, we had to go back to the drawing board and revise it and after that the procurement of such material took a bit of time but now we are good to go, we are ready,” concluded Kumbe.
