ATTERIDGEVILLE RESIDENTS SHUT DOWN THE LOCAL MUNICIPALITY OFFICES

Acting under the banner of Joint Civics Movement, which is purported to be an amalgamation of all civic organisations in Atteridgeville, several residents of that township have shut down the local municipality offices of the City of Tshwane since last week.

According to Spokesperson and advisor of the movement, Reginald Letsoalo, the decision to shut down the local municipal offices premises is in protest against the City of Tshwane’s unfair and high billing system.

“Initially we were fragmented civic organisations until we decided to gravitate into a single united front to fight the billing matter,” said Letsoalo.

“The last important meeting we held with the City of Tshwane was on 19 May 2023 where it was agreed that the issue of cutting off reaudits’ electricity shall be suspended until further notice, but now the City of Tshwane has reneged from that agreement and unilaterally embarked on a campaign called Tshwane Ya Tima without consulting us as a civic organisation,” explained Letsoalo.

“We understand issues of illegal connections and Poorest of the Poor (POP) initiative and our opinion is that POP initiative has not benefited the poor as their electricity gets cut off even though they have indicated that they are indigents,” he said.

Another burning issue is that informal settlement residents have connected electricity illegally and this puts a heavy burden on the local Atteridgeville residents who pay for their electricity consumption while those in informal settlements are not paying,” lamented Letsoalo.

He revealed that an agreement was reached with the City of Tshwane for it to build electricity substations for the informal settlement residents and charge them accordingly for electricity consumption, but the City of Tshwane has failed to do so.

He also revealed that they have had many meetings with MMC for Shared Services in the City of Tshwane but the problem us that once those meetings are over, the City of Tshwane diverts from what was agreed upon.

“We are going to occupy the local municipal offices until the City of Tshwane gives us attention and we have made arrangements with workers’ unions that their members must vacate the premises peacefully as we don’t want violence,” he said.

Letsoalo said they came to the local municipal offices to engage with the local Atteridgeville Councilors as that is where they always meet, but since the Councilors failed to meet them as reaudents, a resolution was taken to shut down the premises and prevent any service s from being rendered there.

Letsoalo said they want attention from anybody at administration level of the City of Tshwane in the firm of COO or CFO because they can’t rely on the promises of the Mayor as reports have emerged that he might be removed from his position in the next few days.

“Our message to the City of Tshwane is that this matter is going to balloon if not address immediately because we are working with some 52 civic organisations across Tshwane and also across Gauteng Province,” he said.

“We don’t want loss of off lives and the continued cut off made by Tshwane Ya Tima team may aggravate the situation on the ground and lead to violent retaliation by residents, so we urge the Mayor to act responsibly and stop sending the Tshwane Ya Tima team to Atteridgeville,” warned Letsoalo.

Letsoalo emphasised that black lives are not cheaper than white lives and therefore blacks in the township must enjoy the same benefits that are enjoyed by residents living in affluent areas like the Pretoria suburbs.

Meanwhile, Councilor Rambau told Tshwane Talks that he is the chairperson of all Ward Councilors in Atteridgeville and expressed regret that they could not meet the community as the meeting which they as Councilors were supposed to hold at the local municipal offices was rescheduled to Tshwane House in the Pretoria CBD.

Rambau admitted that the Tshwane Ya Tima initiative was not implemented properly by the City of Tshwane as they as local Atteridgeville Ward Councilors were not engaged by the official who is handling this initiative.

“The said official belongs to another party and he therefore didn’t engage us or offer more information regarding Tshwane Ya Tima,” explained Rambau.

60-year-old resident David Sekgotha called for the scrapping of all municipality debts owed by residents and for a fresh start to be made, this as he and other residents can’t afford to pay the debt because they are unemployed.

“The problem with this debt is that it is estimated and not actual, and the municipality is not sure of what residents owe,” he said.

“Sometimes we are billed R5 000 while at other times we are billed R100 000, yet we can’t afford all that money because we depend on pension grants,” said Sekgotha.

“With these high debts that the municipality is saying we owe it, the municipality is deliberately trying to take away the little that has been given to us in terms of monthly pension money,” he lamented.

Meanwhile, MMC for Finance in the City of Tshwane Jacqui Uys has announced that the Tshwane Ya Tima electricity cut-off initiative works across the city to disconnect those who do not pay for the services they use.

“There is no area that is exempted from cut-off and we also have finance billing days and public meetings across the City to engage residents and bring finances department to the people,” she said.

“As such a full finance outreach team spent various days in Atteridgeville earlier this year to assist residents with billing queries, indigents applications, affordability write-off applications and payment arrangements,” said Uys.

She said residents who did not make use of the billing day may visit their nearest municipal offices.