Durban - THE uThukela District Municipality
and one of its constituent local councils, Alfred Duma (Ladysmith), have
become entangled in a “tit-for-tat”
dispute, disconnecting one another’s
water and electricity allegedly over
non-payment for service.
On Tuesday, a team from the district municipality was dispatched to the local municipality to disconnect its water supply because of non-payment of about R6 million.
In retaliation, Alfred Duma municipality dispatched a team to uThukela to disconnect its electricity supply for non-payment of about R439 000.
The former supplies electricity while the latter is in control of water supply in the district.
The IFP and DA in the local municipality described the actions as childish.
“We are concerned and we find this tit-for-tat behaviour between these ANC-run municipalities not amusing at all. Employees and the community at large bear the brunt of their failure to run these municipalities efficiently.
“We would also appreciate knowing the reasons behind letting these accounts rocket to these figures,” the IFP’s Abbas Warasally said yesterday.
Employees at both municipalities confirmed the disconnection of water and electricity from Tuesday.
The DA’s Khulekani Msibi, who sits on the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC), said he was waiting for a full report to be submitted.
“I can confirm that lights were cut off at the district municipality and Alfred Duma was cut off from the water supply by yesterday. There’s a lot of squabbling going on in these municipalities. The general view is that the disconnections are childish - or rather, the manner in which they were carried out - but in terms of the law it is legal,” he said.
Alfred Duma spokesperson Siya Maphalala said he had forwarded the Daily News’s inquiries to municipal officials to establish if any money was owed to uThukela that might have led to the disconnection.
The district denied that the two municipalities were at each other’s throats over unpaid debts.
uThukela spokesperson Jabulani Mkhonza said: “Although it is true that the said municipality (Alfred Duma) is indeed owing us some money for the supply of water, it is not true that we disconnected them from water supply. What I know is that yesterday we had a major pipe burst in town which led to the interruption of water supply. The pipe has since been repaired and water supply restored.
“As for the theory that Alfred Duma municipality switched off its electricity supply because of our action to disconnect them, that again is also not true. The fact of the matter is that we have experienced power outages due to load shedding, which happened between 10am and 1pm,” he said.