Provincial legislature offices in Bisho were the first ”black-out” casualties following Buffalo City’s threat that it would disconnect services to government offices that had failed to pay their municipal bills.
City bosses on Tuesday took the first step in their initiative to ”recoup” the outstanding arrears.
The legislature was left with no electricity for more than four hours. The provincial government owes the council R16 106 147 and the national departments owe it R11 114 538.
Politicians and officials were left with no work to do as their computers were down due to the electricity cut. Some were chatting about what they were going to do over the Easter long weekend.
Legislature acting secretary Herlu Smith declined to comment, directing all questions to the Department of Public Works.
United Democratic Movement representative Mabandla Gogo said: ”This is a disgrace that an institute of this magnitude can have its electricity cut off because of non-payment.”
”How are they going to encourage people to pay their rates and services if the major role players do not pay?” Gogo asked.
Public Works representative Andile Fekisi said he does not know why the electricity at the institution was disconnected.
”I do not know why it was disconnected because we owe the municipality nothing. We have sent them our conciliation statements and it shows no arrears,” Fekisi fumed.
”I have no idea why they cut us off.”
Municipality chief financial officer Brian Shepherd said the government still owes them for rates and services.
”I am not aware of it if they have paid but since this morning (Tuesday) we have started disconnecting electricity to all those who owe us money,” he said.
DA MPL Bobby Stevenson said the non-payment by the province sends totally the wrong message to municipalities.
”If government engages in this lax behaviour, what sort of behaviour does it encourage amongst ordinary consumers? Arrears in this province are well over the R1,8 billion mark. Government should be leading by example,” Stevenson said.
”It is a total disgrace that the Legislature finds itself in this predicament. Productivity comes to a halt. This is a further wastage of taxpayers money. Government departments need to pull up their socks to ensure that these accounts are paid timeously.” – Sapa