Newlands East community members feel marginalised by the municipality
|Published
Durban — Newlands East residents held a protest on Wednesday opposing the electricity and water tariff increase set to be implemented by the eThekwini Municipality.
Protest organiser and representative of the Newlands East Interim Crisis Committee, Graham Gaines, said he felt the Newlands East community has been marginalised and ignored by the City.
Gaines said the Newlands community is composed mainly of unemployed persons and pensioners who cannot respond to the demands of “an uncaring government”.
“There are a myriad social and service delivery issues the committee wishes to raise. Central to these is the extremely high electricity tariffs and the recent increase in the monthly municipal statements,” Gaines said.
The committee had given a memorandum to eThekwini ward 11 councillor Allan Peterson to hand to City officials with their demands:
- That the municipality write off the undue credit incurred by the technical error of 6kl of water given to some residents.
- That the municipality withdraws its current practice of demanding additional payments for water from residents whose homes are valued at R300 000 or more. The error of “free water” is a municipal error and has nothing to do with the residents of Newlands East. The residents demand that this debt be written off.
- That the municipality withdraws the plan to request residents pay an additional R180 a month on their municipal bill until the debt is paid in full.
- That the city manager meet a delegation from the community.
- That the current increases are “frozen” until an alternate solution has been found by both parties.
An uMlazi resident, Mpa Zondi, said he has been paying “irregular” water bills for the past two years.
“I have been paying R200 for rates and water and I have never faltered. All of a sudden this year I was billed R1 500. If I ask the reason, I am told we are getting free water. I further asked how we get ‘free water’ and received a reply that the water was supposed to be charged,” he said.
Zondi said the municipality turned a blind eye and he eventually paid the R1 500 in January. This month he received a bill of R5 600.
“I thought when I paid in January, I was covered. However, upon my visit to a Sizakala Customer Services Centre they cannot provide an explanation for my R5 600 bill,” Zondi said.
eThekwini Municipality spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said ratepayers must raise billing concerns with the City’s Revenue Management Unit and visit their nearest Sizakala Customer Services Centre.
Sisilana said aggrieved ratepayers have to exhaust all the City’s internal processes so their accounts can be assessed on a case-by-case basis and resolved.
She said the main reason for the billing enquiries at the moment was the 6kl back charge affecting about 49 000 customers which constitutes less than 10% of the ratepayers in the City.
“The billing disputes are being attended to through the Debt Relief Programme which has made a provision for the repayment of the back charge over a period of 36 months.
“The billing adjustment debt has been standardised, which means that those affected will pay an additional R180 a month for 36 months, instead of the full amount at once,” Sisilana said.
In his State of the City Address, eThekwini Municipality mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said since the year 2000, an additional 200 000 households gained access to water and electricity. Today, the municipality has approximately 800 000 households that have full access to water and electricity.
Chairperson of the eThekwini Ratepayers and Residents Association, Ish Prahladh, said they received news from the municipality regarding a decrease in the proposed tariff increase.
However, the City could not confirm it because the new figures had not been approved by the council.
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Daily News