Pretoria - Municipalities that continue disconnecting consumers' electricity because payments for other services are overdue can receive huge fines.
According to the National Energy Regulator (Nersa), municipalities may not withhold power from consumers because of indebtedness for other services. According to a Nersa spokesperson this is a common practice throughout the country, even in large metropolitan areas like Cape Town, Johannesburg and Tshwane.
In the latest incident, warrants were issued for the arrest of the municipal manager, the mayor and the financial head of the Umsobomvu municipality in Colesberg in the Northern Cape because they apparently ignored a court order prohibiting this practice.
Nersa says it is illegal to withhold electricity from consumers because of other arrear accounts, and it is also a violation of municipalities' licensing conditions as distributors of electricity.
Nersa, should it receive complaints about such actions, may set up a tribunal to investigate them and serve the transgressor with notice to correct the matter.
Should the transgressor ignore this notice, a fine of up to 10% of the municipality's turnover or R2m - whichever is the greater - may be imposed.
The Colesberg Action Group, chaired by Johan Mathee, approached the local magistrate on June 30 after five of his destitute members' prepaid electricity had been disconnected. According to court documents these people were behind in their payments for other municipal services, such as water and property rates.
But they were using prepaid electricity, for which they had paid in cash.
Because of the arrears on other services the municipality however disconnected their electricity.
The action group argued that the municipality, in terms of the Municipal Systems Act, was not allowed to proceed with credit-control measures against residents who, like the action group, had declared a dispute with it.
Furthermore, it was a contravention of the Electricity Regulation Act, declared the residents.
The action group reckoned that the municipality had simply relied on certain provisions in the Municipal Systems Act, in terms of which services can be withheld from defaulters or curbed, and a payment by such a defaulter can be credited against an outstanding municipal account. But the residents argue that the municipality failed to take into account the provisions of the Electricity Regulation Act.
The interdict was granted.
This week, when the court had to decide whether to make the interdict a final order, the Umsobomvu Municipality disclosed that on June 15, two weeks before the application was originally heard, it had published municipal regulations authorising its actions.
The case was then postponed indefinitely to give the action group's legal representatives the opportunity to respond to this development.
The interdict remains in force but, according to Mathee, the municipality is ignoring it.
Nersa explained to Sake24 that municipal regulations are always subservient to national legislation, and cannot legalise the withholding of electricity.
-Sake24