PRETORIA – Independent Media-owned Publication, Pretoria News, dodged having their electricity disconnected by the City of Tshwane on Monday, 14 February 2022.
This follows after the publication owed the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality about 1 Million Rand of unpaid electricity tariffs.
As the City embarked on its revenue collection campaign to businesses and organizations that have been avoiding and ignoring paying their municipal bills under the banner #TshwaneYaTima, which is a Setswana term that means ‘’Tshwane disconnects’’, many businesses were left stranded by the announced visit. This includes government departments which were left without electricity and some without water since the beginning of last week.
The municipality was accompanied by the Executive Mayor, Randall Williams, when engaging in their campaign. This saw the famous Sheraton hotel being disconnected last week after it was confirmed to be owing to the municipality about 23 Million Rand of unpaid tariffs.
Also joining the list of disconnected organizations was the department of Tourism, Department of Higher Training, and the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development which owed the Municipality – 1.2 Million rands, 2 Million rands, and 300 thousand respectively.
Pretoria News. https://t.co/3uYAunWUFG
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) February 14, 2022
According to the spokesperson of the City of Tshwane, Selby Bokaba – Pretoria News owed 1 Million to the Municipality and upon realising that they are about to have their electricity disconnected, they reached out to the municipality and made arrangements to pay R650 000 – 00, which constitutes to 60% of their initial debt to the municipality. The publication also made arrangements to pay off the remaining 40% at a later stage.
The Municipality’s revenue collecting strategy seems to be working as most of the organisations owing the City are making arrangements to have their debts settled. The MMC of Finance in the City, Alderman Peter Sutton, dismissed allegations that their revenue collection strategy does not work and that the municipality is being taken to court.
“We have done over 420 disconnections over the past week, less than 2 percent of those cases have been challenged in court and less than 1 percent of those cases have been successful against the city, and it’s not true that all the cases are being challenged in court” he added
