The Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane says public resources have been looted by African National Congress (ANC) politicians in many municipalities.
He led a picket to the Free State Premier’s Office to hand over a memorandum, demanding the provincial government to take immediate action against municipalities that have failed to pay Eskom.
Maimane says the ANC led provincial government cannot hire comrades and expect them to turn around municipalities.
“Half of the money that is put in these municipalities has been stolen, where the DA is in government. We have demonstrated very clear that in fact we collect revenue and services are delivered to the people because we want to build sustainable cities, municipalities. Now we are demanding that municipalities that can be able to purchase directly from other sources of energy must be allowed to do so. If you can be able to purchase energy from solar plant you must do so immediately because if we all depend Eskom. Eskom will hold all of us at ransom as South Africa.”
Free State Co-operative Governance MEC Oupa Khoabane says the provincial government is doing its best to resolve challenges facing struggling municipalities in the province.
The Maluti-A-Phofung Municipality in QwaQwa and Matjhabeng in Welkom jointly owe Eskom over R5 billion. Khoabane says they are aware of the situation.
“The issues that Mr Maimane said, are the issues that we are working on as a department to ensure that we turn around the situation in the municipalities. But remember that each municipality has its own unique problems, you cannot come up with blanket approach to all of them as if they have the same problems.”
DA leader Mmusi Maimane picketing outside OR Tambo in Bloemfontein to give out memorandum of demands to the provincial premier Sisi Ntombela.#sabcnews#sabcfs pic.twitter.com/OvHMzsxQSW
— Aphumelele Mdlalane (@AphumeleleMdla2) February 21, 2019
Dumelang. Today I'm in the Free State to hand over a memorandum demanding the provincial government to take action against municipalities in the province failing to pay #Eskom their bills.
Eskom is in R419 billion of debt, this is in large part due to ANC run municipalities. pic.twitter.com/F5EMMo7dBe
— Mmusi Maimane (@MmusiMaimane) February 21, 2019
