Regulations needed to regulate electricity cuts amidst Covid-19 pandemic
28 April 2020
Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbites in English and Afrikaans from Harold McGluwa, MPL.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape is calling on COGHSTA MEC, Bentley Vass, to urgently ensure that municipalities wanting to impose electricity cuts are guided by fair and merciful regulations in order to prevent further harm to individual households and local businesses.
In Upington’s DawidKruiper municipality, a blanket approach is being used to switch off and block the electricity of all payment defaulters. This is regardless of the individual merits of each case. This is also in spite of the fact that, over the past month of lockdown, a number of people have not received any income.
Some of the new defaulters previously had clean records and never failed to pay their municipal accounts before the havoc wreaked by the spread of Covid-19. A local guest house owner, who received an account of R9000, cannot pay because the guest house is closed. Except for the flicker of his alarm system, there is no sign of life at the closed premises. There are and have been no clients for the past 35 days and he has received no income, due to the regulations. Like so many other businesses, there is nothing that the guest house owner can do.