Turnaround Strategy for BCM Electricity Department

Dear Editor

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Buffalo City Municipality has launched a strategy and petition calling for a turnaround of the BCM electricity department so that residents and businesses no longer need to carry the costs of municipal inefficiencies and waste.

The BCM electricity department is on the verge of total financial collapse.

Residents and businesses are carrying the burden of power outages, unreliable supply, and tariff hikes.

By stabilising the department’s finances, we can ensure a reliable power supply, boost business growth, attract investors, and provide affordable energy. This will lead to more jobs, economic growth, and a better quality of life.

Some of the DA’s solutions in our strategy are:

• Increase maintenance and refurbishment of electricity Infrastructure.
• Enhance the number of and capacity of the Revenue Protection teams.
• Introduce a dedicated Law Enforcement unit allocated to Revenue Protection.
• Change legally bypassed electricity meters to prepaid meters by the end of the 2024/25 financial year.
• Provide all indigent grant recipients with prepaid electricity meters – to be installed by BCM at no cost to the indigent beneficiary.
• Establish a task team, that includes BCM official(s), SAPS, representation from the private sector and any other relevant departments to find solutions to clampdown on the theft of electricity across all communities.
• Investigate a method of recording electricity consumed because of illegal connections in formal and informal settlements separately from non-technical losses.

The DA will submit this turnaround strategy accompanied by the petition to the City Manager so that this forms part of the budget consultations and draft budget that will be tabled by the end of March and subjected to public participation.

We will also mobilise communities to attend public participation meetings, equipped with solutions to offer at these sessions.

Together, we can help steer Buffalo City Metro toward a future where reliable and affordable electricity is not a luxury, but a fundamental service that supports both residents and businesses.

Regards

Leander Kruger MPL
DA Buffalo City Constituency Leader