More than half of Makana's water and electricity supplies went amiss in the month of October, due to ageing infrastructure and unbilled buildings that sap the municipality's much needed revenue.
More than half of Makana's water and electricity supplies went amiss in the month of October, due to ageing infrastructure and unbilled buildings that sap the municipality's much needed revenue.
This problem was raised in a finance portfolio committee meeting this week. In October the electricity loss in Makana was reported to be an alarming 72.79% of the units of electricity purchased, where the units purchased were 9 774 963 and units lost through distribution were 7 115 737.
Over and above this, lost water accounted to a 67.06% loss in distribution where 302 577 kilolitres of the 451 219 kilolitres that had been purified and distributed was lost. It was also brought to attention at the meeting that the Makana Resort has not been billed for two years, yet it uses the bulk electricity and water in the area and contributes to water losses.
This is the situation with many other buildings too, that are connected to municipal services but are not billed because the municipality's finance department fails to follow up and issue them with accounts. “There was a council committee including finance [officials]that was set up to look into the technical and financial reasons why there are losses,” said councillor Les Reynolds.
He then suggested that the committee should be resuscitated. A report from the acting Chief Financial Officer, Namhla Dlulane read that revenue control is further weakened by the unread or averaged meter reading for municipal rates, water and electricity accounts. She also mentioned unbilled, or upgraded buildings and approved plans that are not accurately billed and a suspense account of unreceipted amounts totalling up to R11.7 million.
Committee chairperson, councillor Pierre Ranchhod explained that meter readings are not monitored but estimated. “In some cases, I have seen meters being averaged for 6 months or not even read at all,” he said. Ranchhod added that he has spoken to the meter readers and hopefully every single one of the meter readers will be read more regularly from now on.
Dlulane said that the Department of Local Government is looking into procuring the services of PricewaterhouseCoopers to assist with the revenue management of municipalities. She added that the Municipal Manager, Ntombi Baart has submitted a letter to the department to appeal to be one of the three municipalities that will be chosen to pilot the project.
