Residents of the Klerksdorp-based Matlosana Local Municipality in North West are crying foul over high electricity costs and irregular municipal billing. They say they buy pre-paid electricity units at exorbitant prices which exceed the standard rates.
Residents also complain about being billed inaccurately resulting in high municipal account balances.
Mariam Seutlwadi, an unemployed mother of three, says this has made it difficult to support her family as R50 electricity gives her six units.
“I buy R50 electricity and spend at least R300 and something and I am unemployed. I have to support my children as breadwinners. And my biggest problem is I never see people come here to check out the meter, my municipal bill for January is R73 000.”
Billy Mhlakaza, who runs a small business in the area, says many residents are deliberately overcharged for electricity by the municipality which is also accused of inaccurately billing residents.
“I buy electricity every day for both my home and this business which is currently struggling because of the high electricity costs. My municipal bill is always high. When I buy electricity for R50, I only get five units, so it means I spend R100 every second, R50 for the house and R50 for the business.”
The Local Wesvaal Chamber of Commerce says many of these complaints raised are due to irregular rate estimates applied by the local municipality.
Wesvaal Chamber of Business’ Kgotso Mmadi says there’s inconsistency in the amount of prepaid meters.
“If you use a prepaid, you find that sometimes the meters that you get for a certain amount is inconsistent, to those where the municipality is taking meters they use estimates and our feeling or we believe that even the very estimates that they are using is inconsistent and might not be in line with the bi-laws. Currently, we want to say to the municipality to indulge us as business and as residents of the city to say how you come about doing the estimates so that we should be enlightened.
The Executive mayor City of Matlosana James Tsolela says that the electricity tariffs and their municipal billing systems are all regulated.
“Every financial year, we do a budget consultation where we disclose and discuss our tariffs with the community and our rates are regulated by NERSA, therefore there is no way that we can overcharge the issue of the billing system. It is an easy route for people to make excuses for not paying. However, we’ve taken it into serious consideration and we are working with DBSA to ensure that we are cleansing our data so that our billing system is credible and reliable,”
The Municipality has also appealed to affected residents to report any inappropriate billing so it can resolve any possible mistakes.
