MPS WANT ELECTRICITY LEVY STOPPED

MBABANE – Members of parliament are red-faced about the establishment of the Electricity Access Fund by government through SEC without following the legal laid-down procedures.

They want it stopped immediately.
Speaking to the Times SUNDAY, the legislators were frank in their reaction to the news that electricity consumers are unwittingly contributing to the establishment of an unknown multimillion Emalangeni electrification access fund which was established without their knowledge.
The Times SUNDAY revealed last week that electricity users are unknowingly paying an extra charge referred to as electricity levy which is about E0.0129 cents (less than two cents) for every unit of electricity purchased.

SEC customers affected by this extra charge include Domestic (S1), General Purpose (S2), Small Commercial (S3), Life Line (S10), Small Holder Irrigation (K4), Large Commercial and Industrial (K5) and Large Irrigation (K6). Parliamentarians interviewed by the Times SUNDAY unanimously agreed that the fund’s set-up was not above board and was marred by too much secrecy.
Gege Member of Parliament Mbongseni Malinga did not mince words as he stated boldly that he knew nothing about the fund or the fact that it would be set up in this manner.

“I won’t lie to you, I know nothing about this fund and as a parliamentarian, I need to know and to check when exactly the minister of Natural Resources and Energy threw us under the bus as a country,” he said.
He said this issue needed all the parliamentarians to work hand in hand in ensuring that the fund is stopped and that stakeholders be involved fully as per the procedure when similar funds are established. “We represent the people and it is our duty to protect their interests. If such funds are established and imposed on the citizenry, what sort of MPs are we?,” he wondered.

Malinga said being a lone trader in the market was dangerous as had been noted with Swazi MTN. “Do you remember how much we paid to send a short message (SMS) before the news that Swazi Mobile was coming into the market?”
He said compared to the E0.80 paid before and the E0.30 paid now, it is clear that consumers were fleeced of their cash for many years. “This is the same thing that SEC has done to consumers; they have ‘killed’ us with excessive electricity fees,” Malinga said.

He noted that the prices charged by the service provider were very different and mentioned that these changes were also introduced overnight.
He made an example of how the entity charged E2 800 per member for those within a scheme who wanted electricity connection yet an individual is charged a much lesser fee of E5 000. He wondered what warranted such a huge difference. “We as parliament will call the minister to order over this; we need to stop it,” he said.

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