Power bills upset families

2008/02/14

Informal dwellers are billed for unbuilt homes

RESIDENTS of Mdant-sane East informal settlement in NU1 are fuming because they are getting water and electricity bills for houses that have not been built.

More than one hundred families living in the area are receiving bills from the municipality almost every month.

They range from R150 to R12000.

But the people say they do not owe anything.

Speaking on behalf of the informal settlement’s residents, Irene Siteti said that they refused to pay the bills because they were not getting any of the services for which they were being charged.

“Some municipal officials said our first councillor had told them that four-roomed houses had been built for us so we must pay.

“That’s all lies,” Siteti said. “We’ve been here for about 18 years and the government kept on promising that houses would be built but that did not happen.

“We’ve been telling them that they must come here to see for themselves that we don’t own houses, but they have not come. We have had enough of these lies,” she said.

The residents say they have been getting the bills for years and were sent from pillar to post by the Buffalo City Municipality when they tried to sort the problem out.

They have also been trying to get roads built in the area and water taps fixed that have been broken since last year.

At the moment the residents of the informal settlement are getting water from a neighbouring area, where there are four-roomed houses. But they have to pay the owners of the houses for the water.

Siteti said they received electricity only after enquiring at the municipal office in Beacon Bay themselves, but the municipality later had blocked it, saying the residents had to pay their bills first.

Siteti said the municipality was neglecting the informal settlement and dragging its feet when it came to service delivery.

“All they wanted was our votes. After we voted for them, they disappeared into thin air,” she said. “We’re not going to vote in the next elections if they continue to treat us like this.”

Ward councillor Richmond Mabeta confirmed that the residents were getting accounts for services they were not receiving.

Mabeta said various councillors had been trying to convince the municipality to stop sending the bills.

He lamented the lack of proper administration within the municipality.

“We don’t know how they calculated these things,” he said.

“There’s no roads, electricity, water or toilets. It’s shocking to have a situation like these, because there’s the Mdantsane Urban Renewal and other programmes aimed at developing Mdantsane.”

The municipality did not respond to requests for comment. – By VUYOLWETHU SANGOTSHA

from Mdantsane Dispatch