Municipalities use high electricity and water tariffs for profit – Patricia de Lille

GOOD Party leader Patricia de Lille says due to high tariffs, people are now opting between paying their electricity and water bills or buying food.

De Lille and her team on Sunday did some canvassing along Stellenbosch, Klapmuts and Franschhoek in the Western Cape. She said during the party’s campaign trail across the country, and the Western Cape in particular, pressing concerns among communities include the high electricity and water tariffs.

She told Independent Media because of high electricity and water bills which escalate in arrears amounts, people can no longer afford the high bills. If we are given an opportunity by people voting for us, we will commit to getting into the municipalities to stop them from making profit on water and electricity.

’’They (municipalities) buy their water and electricity from Eskom and then put an amount up. This is why electricity is so expensive.

“Municipalities then take those profits for use within the municipality. It is daylight robbery. As the Good Party, we will change the tariff structure to not include a margin of tariff. The municipality can however look at putting a small fee for the distribution of electricity, but they can’t make a profit out of it,” De Lille said.

She added there is no evidence municipalities are reinvesting the profits.

During the 2019 national and provincial government elections, the Good Party, after three months since its establishment, was able to secure 70 000 votes. Two members were sworn in as MPs and a third as a MPL.

With four weeks to go before the 2021 local government elections, De Lille said the party participated in a number of by-elections to test their systems. “We have been able to win one ward in George municipality.”

For the upcoming elections, the Good Party is vying for 45 municipalities, six of the metropolitans and about 1000 wards.

Yesterday ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa was out and about in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.

He heard the plight of those living in shacks and committed to having government officials address the concerns of the residents who he engaged with.

Ramaphosa said the DA had not built houses for the people of Nelson Mandela Bay, so there is a high need for a change.

“If you don’t vote for the ANC, the DA will continue not looking at our people as they have disconnected electricity in some parts of the municipality,” Ramaphosa emphasised.

He further made a promise to create jobs for young people of Nelson Mandela Bay and the country at large.

Ramaphosa started his election campaigning in the Eastern Cape in East London on Saturday, where he was disrupted by the rain and could not address the crowd.

“As the ANC nationally, we aim to win all the major cities in South Africa, and those are the Nelson Mandela Bay, Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, ’hambani novotela iANC’,” said Ramaphosa.

On the last day of his four-day election campaign in Limpopo, EFF leader Julius Malema insisted on speedy service delivery in rural and peri-urban areas. He said once in power, the EFF would ensure it builds quality RDP houses for the masses.

On establishing clinics in the area, Malema said he wanted each ward in the area to have a fully functional clinic that has a full staff complement of nurses, doctors and proper ambulances.

At the launch of the SACP’s Red October Campaign launch in Inchanga yesterday, ANC NEC member Lindiwe Sisulu said she had been encouraged by the unity shown in Inchanga, in which members of the Communist Party and the ANC had opted to come together and decided that they were no longer going to work divided and tear each other apart and instead work together for one goal.

“I’m also glad that this thing of the Communist Party wanting to contest elections on its own is over, we are all ANC today, all ANC to wish the SACP good luck in the years going forward. We must congratulate the SACP because we are one party fighting an election as one.

“The unity we found here is the unity we want to make sure that each and every province in this country is going to be able to pick it up and take the sword and move forward, we’ve faced worse periods than this, but right now we need to make sure we face those problems together,” Sisulu said.

Source: IOL

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