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Johannesburg - Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown ruled out a flat electricity rate for Soweto at a meeting with ANC Gauteng leaders on Monday.
She had also been assured at the meeting that the ANC would not support a planned march on Eskom by Soweto residents unhappy about the imposition of smart meters.
To her surprise and dismay, however, ANC regional leaders went ahead with the planned march on Thursday.
Brown told City Press she was surprised the march had gone ahead on the day that she delivered her budget vote in Parliament – because she had been given assurances by the ANC that it would not.
“We had a meeting on Monday with the ANC in the province – the mayors and everybody,” she said.
“We agreed that we must hold back on it and that there is a process that needs to happen in Soweto.
“I said there are some things we actually cannot really allow. For example, you must be able to manage and control your own electricity.”
Although Brown was reluctant to divulge details of the heated discussions she had with provincial ANC leaders, a source privy to discussions said she had told them in no uncertain terms that a flat rate for Soweto was completely out of the question.
“She told them that if we give Soweto the flat rate they demand, what about the people of Tembisa, Atteridgeville, Langa, Khayelitsha and Mdantsane? What if they too want a flat rate and no pre-paid meters?” said the source.
“She said if you charge a flat rate, and that flat rate means a subsidy, where is that money going to come from?”
The meeting with Brown came after statements of condemnation were issued by both the City of Joburg and the ANC in the region last Saturday, blasting Eskom as “insensitive” for allegedly instituting a 10-hour power cut in Soweto the previous day. Eskom claimed the outage was due to technical difficulties.
Orlando West residents have been protesting against the installation of smart meters, which they say Eskom forced on them to curb illegal connections.
Brown acknowledged that tensions escalated in Soweto because Eskom had not properly communicated its plans to residents. She said her department was in the process of “opening up communication lines”.
ANC Gauteng spokesperson Nkenke Kekana at first denied knowledge of the meeting, but was unable to comment further when given additional details about when the meeting took place and who had attended.
The ANC in Gauteng – which came close to losing the province in 2014, securing only 54% of the vote – is nervous about losing the City of Joburg in next year’s local government elections.
Although Gauteng has one of the highest electricity connection levels in the country, at 87.9%, and the highest income levels, according to Stats SA census data, the ANC will still struggle to retain the three metros – Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni – at the polls.
In comparison with other provinces, Gauteng’s monthly income is double that of all other provinces, at R4 800, while other provinces’ income is at R2 400, yet it experiences the highest rate of service-delivery protests.
A senior provincial government official privy to discussions told City Press that if the ANC had not supported the protest march, other people would have exploited the community’s grievances.
“It’s a strategy and tactics thing. If the ANC in Joburg had washed its hands and stood aside as a spectator, other people would have filled that vacuum.”
The insider said the ANC’s support of the march was not an endorsement of a R400 flat rate demanded by residents, but an indication of its unhappiness with the manner in which Eskom had handled the smart meters.
“This criticism about the ANC marching against itself is disingenuous. It doesn’t mean that if a state-owned company does wrong, the ANC should keep quiet. It was the same case with e-tolls and Sanral.”
The ANC in Gauteng locked horns with national government over the Gauteng freeway improvement project and the imposition of e-tolls on motorists.
Meanwhile, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan revealed that a number of municipalities that were facing a threat of disconnection had entered into negotiations with Eskom.
Gordhan said, following the announcement by Eskom earlier this year, that they met with the 20 mayors of the 20 top municipalities that owed large amounts of money to Eskom and together they agreed the money would be repaid over a period of time.
