Dying diggers of Namaqualand need saving
| by Fawzia Rhoda MPL – DA Constituency Head of Bo-Karoo |
| Date: 01 March 2020 |
| Release: Immediate |
| Since the pleas of residents and ratepayers fall on seemingly deaf ears, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape repeats our requests to the premier, the MEC for Co-operative Governance, Human Settlements & Traditional Affairs and the MEC for Finance to prevent an imminent service delivery disaster in Emthanjeni Local Municipality.The council meeting scheduled for Friday 28 February to discuss municipal debt of more than R81 million owed to Eskom was canceled on the day. Pulling the plug on the meeting meant no solution could be found and left council powerless to prevent disconnection in bulk supply by Eskom.Why the mayor only agreed to a council meeting two full weeks after Eskom warned that municipal debt could result in disruptions is a mystery. Canceling is reckless. Until an agreement is reached, residents will be left in the dark with daily supply shutdowns stretching for fourteen consecutive hours from 06:00am to 08:00pm, along with the ordinary schedule for rotational loadshedding from Stages 1 to Stage 6.Within hours after the cancelation, it became known that negotiations with Eskom had failed as minimum payments offered by the municipality were too small. Double loadshedding is now set to start on Tuesday 3 March.The local ratepayers’ association prepares for an interdict to prevent disconnections, because most of a person’s life takes place from morning to night. Learners study on the TVET campuses or go to school, businesses and banks are open for trade, public spaces like libraries or health facilities offer services to members of the public. And, since municipal water supply relies on boreholes and telemetrics dependent on constant power supply, any disruption to power supply means a disruption to water supply too. Public health is at very real risk through the spread of waterborne infections which can be fatal to children, the elderly or individuals with compromised immune systems.In 2018, Emthanjeni averted this service delivery crisis with at least two payment plans. And defaulted. This is the third time that the threat of disconnections loom in the space of less than thirteen months.Where is the money going to come from and how is Emthanjeni going to break from the cycle of debt, defaulting, disconnections, and debt?At the end of the last financial year, Emthanjeni had enough cash to cover three days’ worth of work. You need at least three months for a bare minimum of financial sustainability. The operating budget is under strain and overspent by 23%, with a third of those expenses later categorized as either fruitless or wasteful.The residents of Emthanjeni cannot afford for the provincial administration to be as devil-may-care about this as the mayor seems to be. We urge the provincial government to ensure that an arrangement can be put in place to solve this crisis. |
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