By Libuseng Nyaka
QWAQWA – The absence of vending machines where residents can purchase electricity has emerged as one of the challenges affecting poor people living in the deep rural area of Maluti-a-Phofung municipality.
This emerged during the council sitting on November 20, 2024, where the concern was raised by Map16 Civic Movement councillor Shashapa Motaung.
“We have requested to be supplied with vending machines near our vilages where we can buy electricity. People in the villages do not refuse to purchase electricity, but we do not have vending machines where we can purchase it. Travelling to town in Setsing with your last R50 spared for purchasing electricity is costly.
“It is closing date on November 24, 2024; we were told to inform people who have a problem with registering their meter boxes into a new system but when they arrive here, they are being charged. I have no problem with this, unless we can be told what the charge is for.
“You cannot expect someone from Tseseng to come here to buy electricity and go back on foot. This issue of vending stations remains unresolved.”
Motloung charged that some of the problems have been causes by the municipal leadership or its officials.
“When technicians are unable to fix electricity they open the boxes and say they must continue using electricity until they come back and today we are charging them because we are covering our own mess using the community. Even those who have updated to TID, there are some who have upgraded to TID and could their purchase a token of electricity which does not upload, so are we expecting such a person to stay with that box. No
“On the matter of TID, If you charge those who have not been purchasing electricity R20 000 when they fail to pay, that means they will not be registered and will continue using electricity without paying for it. I think it is better if we separate processes of TID from this one of targeting those who do not buy electricity. It must stands on its own even that one of charging people should be treated separately. We failed a long time ago to charge them, while auditing them. We should have charged them at that time.”
Addressing the council, the executive mayor Malekula Melato encouraged residents to upgrade their meter boxes at the department of electricity, announcing that each case will be treated according to its merits.
“We had a meeting with the representatives of the community and explained how we will handle this matter. This is not a new issue, and it was proven by relevant departments that public participation has been done. During our meeting with those community representatives, they acknowledged that they were informed about the updating of their meter boxes, meaning they were informed about what is going to happen. Even those concerns raised by councillors were addressed, but aligning ourselves with our strategy to say we have different issues which require a separate approach.
“For instance, if your box was removed, go to finance and report that; then finance will check purchase records from the system. Our grandmothers avail themselves for finance when they arrive there they are told that they owe R3000. But when you check on the system you find out at some point, a particular grandmother was getting free electricity because she is registered as an indigent but later disappeared. After five months when she comes back she will no longer be treated as an indigent because her meter shows it has been tampered with maybe by her grandchildren.
We have such cases and have agreed with the community that each and every person must report to the municipality because cases differ and a blanket approach will not apply.”
