The DA in Buffalo City Metro is gunning for the support of the city’s residents in its new nine-point turnaround strategy aimed at fixing the metro’s ailing electricity department for the 2025/2026 financial year.
The party has argued that a well-run electricity department will result in lower electricity tariffs for the residents and businesses in the near future.
This was presented during a media conference at the DA’s constituency office in Stirling on Tuesday morning.
The party announced it would be opening a public petition where residents could provide input on the proposed plans that will be submitted to the council for consideration into the draft budget in May.
This follows a public outcry after BCM implemented a 12.07% electricity tariff hike in July 1 2024, where residents faced a new monthly electricity network and service charge of between R370 and R660 before VAT.
This after the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) approved the city’s application to charge prepaid customers a “cost of supply” rate of R376 for infrastructure maintenance, while credit metering account users’ (postpaid users) existing charge increased to R660 a month.
The nine-point proposed solution presented by the party as part of its “Metro Campaign” was to:
- Increase maintenance and refurbishment of electricity infrastructure;
- Enhance the number and capacity of the revenue protection teams;
- Introduce a dedicated law enforcement unit allocated to revenue protection;
- Change illegally bypassed electricity meters to prepaid meters by the end of the 2024/2025 financial year;
- Provide all indigent grant recipients with prepaid electricity meters — to be installed by BCM at no cost;
- Increase public awareness campaigns to encourage those who qualify to register for indigent free electricity allocations;
- Establish a task team that includes BCM officials, the SAPS, private sector and other departments to clamp down on electricity theft;
- Investigate a method of recording electricity consumed as a result of illegal connections in formal and informal settlements separately from non-technical losses; and
- Change BCM bylaws to accommodate the above remedial actions.
DA Buffalo City constituency leader and MPL Leander Kruger said the petition would be available also on the party’s online platforms.
He said the city had made a total of R27m in revenue in its first month of increased tariffs.
“We are going to communities where we will say these are our solutions that we will be proposing to Buffalo City and we need you on board, we need your assistance regardless of your political associations.
“We want to send a clear message to our city leadership that unless you start addressing these underlying problems, we are going to continue this trajectory of these losses and unaffordable tariffs for our residents.
“We are hoping that we will be submitting this as part of the budget considerations for the city, when the city crafts its budget for the new financial year, these will be taken into account because they are budgetary implications.
“The introduction of the electricity tariffs is crippling businesses.
“If we go forward on this trajectory, not only will this department continue in making losses, but our residents are going to continue struggling.”
Kruger said the party was open to working with ratepayers’ associations.
Kruger was joined by BCM caucus leader Sue Bentley, DA BCM constituency chair Terence Fritz and DA BCM chief whip Anathi Majeke.
Bentley said they hoped public participation processes would not be flawed for the upcoming financial year.
“This is part of the process of empowering residents because they now know we have offered solutions.
“They didn’t know that the city has only one revenue protection team.
“The only thing positive that came out last year when there was no public participation is that residents became angry when they had no input in the budgeting process.
“I hope Buffalo City won’t allow that to happen again.”
Just a few weeks after the implementation of the electricity hikes, fed-up BCM residents intensified their fight against high electricity prices and the metro’s failure to adequately consult citizens before it approved the budget at a hastily convened council meeting on May 31.
Various ratepayers’ associations had vowed to take legal action against the city with the hope of interdicting the metro from enforcing the increases.
Responding to the DA’s proposal, Beacon Bay Ratepayers’ Association chair Scott Roebert said: “The ratepayers’ associations are non-political associations but we are willing to work with anyone for the betterment of service delivery.
“The electricity tariffs issue galvanised all communities and we had members from all political parties speaking one language for a change, we need to all work together to fight service delivery issues and the like.
“BCM needs to work with us as the community to make this city great again, after all, we have a symbiotic relationship where BCM provides services and we pay for the services rendered.
“We cannot survive without one another so let’s learn to communicate better.”
The city is expected to released its draft budget for the 2025/2026 financial year in May.
The draft budget was part of the Medium Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework.
Public consultation roadshows will follow soon after.
Daily Dispatch
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