It is about a month now that the residents of Drakenstein could not access municipal services and this is affecting the residents of Mbekweni in particular.
The municipality is claiming its systems have been hacked and is trying to recover the data it has lost. This is very embarrassing for an institution of this magnitude to be hacked and does not have a back-up system.
This shows a lack of capacity and vision on the part of the Municipal Manager and his team. This also implies the lack of leadership and accountability from the part of the Executive Mayor and his/her council.
The elephant in the room is the municipality outsourcing its responsibilities to private companies. The surprising thing is that the electricity blockages are not affected. This gives an indication that electricity blockages are carried out by private hands who are interested in making money and milking the residents and municipality. When electricity is blocked the residents are requested to pay a certain amount of money to unblock the system, and the interesting thing is these amounts are never reflected in the monthly statements of the consumers.
These electricity blockages are not consistent, they occur after the 15th of every month and again after the 25th, and each time the consumer must pay to unblock the system.
These blockages affect every consumer – the elderly pensioner and indigent citizen. It is interesting to note that even the councillors cannot give a satisfactory explanation to their communities about this.
It is clear the municipality is not transparent in its dealings with regard to the outsourcing of its responsibilities.
