Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Leona Keynhans MPL and Sesotho soundbite by Jafta Mokoena MPL
The announcement that Premier Dukwana will preside over the signing ceremony of the Eskom Distribution Agency Agreement (DAA) between the Maluti-a-Phofung municipality and Eskom, in Qwa Qwa, is a desperate and cynical attempt to regain some credibility with voters in the area, just three weeks before the election on 29 May in which the ANC will likely not regain its majority in the Legislature.
The announcement, in Qwa Qwa, of a ‘solution to the electricity debt crisis’ was first made by former Deputy President, David Mabuza, in December 2020, and followed legal action spanning the previous two years, which had led to the Eskom Task Team being established.
Subsequently, in June 2021, the Gauteng High Court ordered that Eskom take over the electricity function in Maluti-a-Phofung, after the ANC-led council resisted the agreement.
The Democratic Alliance has since 2018 said that Eskom must take over the electricity function in MaP, because the municipality has neither the capacity nor the resources to fulfil its service delivery obligations in this regard. The municipality has one of the highest debts to Eskom in the country.
While residents of Maluti-a-Phofung have waited for the ANC political games to play out, thousands of jobs have been lost through factory and businesses closures. The FS in the last year lost 70 000 jobs, with a large proportion of those being in MaP.
It is clear that the ANC has betrayed the people of MaP, and only now, four years after the first announcement, when confronted with a loss of its majority in the Free State, has suddenly awoken from its slumber. We view this political manipulation of the people as a slap in the face of those suffering under a 70% unemployment rate. If the agreement had been signed with urgency, many thousands of jobs could have been saved, and entire families spared the indignity of living in poverty.
Only the DA has the policies and track record in good governance to rescue the Free State and MaP , restore proper governance and ensure services, also to business and industry which relies on these bulk services to survive.