Watch: Angry Bethal residents burn tyres over power cuts
The communities of Bethal and eMzinoni are up in arms over their electricity troubles and have taken to streets, demanding the Govan Mbeki and Gert Sibande District Municipality come up with a plan to address their grievances
Community members in Bethal, Mpumalanga have taken their anger over the rolling blackouts to the streets, setting fire to tyres and blocking the N17 on the evening of Wednesday, 19 August 2020.
According to Ridge Times, a local publication, residents were at their wits end after municipality workers downed tools over lack of overtime pay – which left them with nowhere to turn for their mounting electricity troubles.
Watch: Bethal residents protest against municipal issues
In a video shared by former Eskom CEO Matshela Koko, residents can be seen rolling tyres towards the blaze.
Issues surrounding electricity are nothing new to both the Bethal and eMzinoni community, with some of the main factors contributing to the outages being illegal connections, cable theft as well as the Govan Mbeki Municipality’s debt to Eskom.
The municipality reportedly owes the power utility close to R2 billion.
At the same time the Mayor Thandi Ngxonono has acknowledged some of their financial hurdles and they were doing all they could to settle their matter with Eskom.
“Progressive engagements are continually taking place with Eskom in order to arrive at a workable solution for this particular challenge. It is imperative that I should make a clarion call to all our people in this municipality to join hands with us and pay their outstanding accounts to the municipality”, Ngxonono is quoted as saying when she tabled the annual budget in May 2020.
The Gert Sibande District Municipality has essentially taken over the handling of Bethal and eMzinoni’s electricity-related matters and has implemented a series of measures to help it recover financially including an initiative aimed at getting rid of illegal connections.
Eskom, which is also experiencing a major cash crunch, is set out to recover debt owed to municipalities – using a three-fold strategy.
However, it said when all avenues to allow the municipality to pay have been exhausted and fail, the utility would have no other choice but to take drastic steps such as interrupting the electricity supply or even terminate, if necessary.
Mpumalanga is one the few provinces which has the highest debt owed to Eskom, with close to R9 billion yet to be settled with the state-owned entity.
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