MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs in Mpumalanga, Mr Mandla Msibi has commended the Govan Mbeki Local Municipality for taking a decisive step of disconnecting illegal electricity connections at eMbalenhle. The Municipality in collaboration with the South African Police Services and the South African National Defence Force conducted a blitz to remove illegal connections in about 300 houses.
Mr Msibi says illegal connections are a scourge that paralyze municipalities from supplying power to deserving citizens. "The Govan Mbeki Municipality is not immune from the loss in revenue, amounting to millions of rands due to electrical illegal connections. The transformers often cut the supply of electricity due to overloading, and as a result the municipality incur losses worth millions of rands for replacement. The disconnections will send a strong message to the culprits that tampering with the infrastructure is a criminal offence," Mr Msibi warned.
He says the blitz is necessary to reduce the risks to humans and the devastation effect to the local economy. "Uncovered electrical lines due to the illegal connections, contribute to fatalities through electrocution. It has a devastation effect to the Local Economic Development. No business can operate effectively in an environment of power outages and this discourage investments that we need badly to boost local economies and further contribute to job losses," he said.
Mr Msibi urged communities to pay for the use of electricity and other municipal services to prevent a collapse of municipalities and for the realization of a responsive and developmental local government envisaged in the 2030 National Development Plan. He says this must be done online to comply with the COVID-19 lockdown regulations to curb the spread of the virus. He advised those who cannot afford due to valid reasons to contact their municipalities to make arrangements.
Ends.
Issued by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs,
Contact Person: Mr George Mthethwa
Contact Numbers: 013 766 6572/ 083 302 2774
E-mail: gpmthethwa@mpg.gov.za
Facebook: @mpucogta
Twitter: @cogtamp