STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD SECRETARY-GENERAL AND MEMBER OF THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT
15 February 2021
In Plettenberg Bay, associated by some South Africans with holiday homes and partying, the town’s poorest residents are being bled dry by a municipality charging massive standard water tariffs regardless of how much water is actually being used.
Residents of Kwanokuthula are charged a monthly fee of R1254.44 for water consumption, while residents of Kranshoek are charged R829.42. Every household is charged the same amount regardless of whether residents were at home or not, how many people live in the house, or their real consumption.
These “estimated” amounts – it appears that no actual water consumption readings are taken – are astonishingly high, obviously unaffordable, and prejudicial to people who can least afford it.
Those who have fallen behind with their payments are disconnected, threatened with legal action, and have money deducted from their pre-paid electricity purchases. The consequences for many families are that they are being denied water and can no longer afford electricity.
For the Bitou Municipality to be threatening residents with disconnection and legal action, and in many cases actually disconnecting residents, when it doesn’t even know how much water, if any, the residents have actually consumed, is abusive and fundamentally unfair.
Last week I posed a series of written questions to the MEC for Local Government Anton Bredell about Bitou, including about the municipality’s water charges and its policies on indigent relief. Over the weekend I held a series of meetings in Bitou, and will this week request the Human Rights Commission to investigate the abuse.
I have also invited the Mayor of Bitou Peter Lobese (whose taste in expensive official vehicles caused outrage last year) to join me at two public meetings with the communities at the end of the month.
The written question to MEC Bredell are attached.
Ends…