Byline: Andani Matumba

07 November 2022

Even after the municipality won the case for the termination of contract for Ideal Prepaid Solutions, the contractor which was appointed by Govan Mbeki Municipality to sell prepaid electricity to its residents on behalf of the municipality is alleged to still be vending and collecting proceeds on behalf of the municipality without transferring to GMM what is due to them.

During his address to the councillors at the launch of the Mayoral Service Delivery outreach programme which took place in Embalenhle on Friday, 03 November 2022, the Executive Mayor of Govan Mbeki Municipality, Cllr Nhlakanipho Zuma said that although the municipality has terminated the contract with Ideal Prepaid Solutions the previous year, the contractor continued to vend unlawfully within the municipality and continues to collect revenue from the residents of the municipality without the authority to do so because GMM won the case against the contractor where it was compelled to desist service.

“Although at the beginning they used to forward the proceeds to our finance department, that has now stopped all together and they do not send whatever money they make from selling our electricity to our residents to us anymore,” said Cllr Zuma.

The Executive Mayor further stated, “The contractor is still selling R5 million worth of electricity which belongs to the municipality, they no longer even transfer that money to our account and not even inform us on how much they are collecting but we are aware that it is above R5 million”.

“We have met with the Auditor General from Treasury and they declared that the contractor should be compelled to disclose the exact figures being collected within GMM now we are going to court to compel them to give us statements for declaration on what they collected from the beginning of the contract and after their termination,” said the Executive Mayor in closing elaborating that the municipality intends on instituting a civil case for damages so that the contractor pays back every cent it owes to the municipality.

GMM has been investing on revenue generation through initiatives of identifying ghost vendors and those who have connected the electricity illegally in order to be able place itself in the position where it would be able to reduce the Eskom bill as well as Rand Water.

The past few weeks since the launch early November have been said to be successful.

Seskhona Newspaper tried to contact Ideal Prepaid for comment on the allegations with no luck.