Newcastle Municipality is making significant progress in addressing service delivery issues while improving its financial standing. This follows a council meeting held on Wednesday, 3 July 2024, where councillors were introduced to a new system that will potentially revolutionise revenue collection and infrastructure management.
Newcastle Municipality’s Municipal Manager, Zamani Mcinecka, explained that the municipality faces certain challenges due to its financial standing, which is slowly improving.
With this said, he explained that a series of discussions were held with the Municipal Manager, the Newcastle Mayor, Cllr Xolani Dube, the former Deputy Mayor, Cllr Musa Thwala, and other relevant stakeholders.
These discussions, Mcinecka explained, led to the Newcastle Municipality obtaining a service provider to advance service delivery while securing necessary revenue from residents through a smart metre system.
“The system will assist in reducing water losses, which have been problematic for three to four years, while identifying illegal connections and checking which accounts are in arrears,” the Municipal Manager explained. He further highlighted that preparations for the necessary pilot programme are underway. After the pilot programme is complete, the Newcastle Council will be notified of when the project could be rolled out and voted on for its go-ahead.
No timeframe was allocated for when the pilot programme would commence, but the community will be notified.
Taking a closer look at the system, representatives from Sukuma Business Development provided a brief explanation of the smart metres set to be implemented in Newcastle.
“Sukuma will invest up to R280 million into the Newcastle Municipality, which will go towards the smart metres for electricity and water,” explained a representative from Sukuma. He noted that the company was allocated a budget of just over R1 billion to address issues such as debt collection and enhancing the municipality’s services through the system.
Furthermore, as explained by Sukuma, the smart metres will move local consumers, residents and businesses, to prepaid water and electricity, ensuring that historical debt is recovered as the readings will show exactly how much is owed by each entity. This will also allow the Municipality to implement structures to prevent historical debt from becoming a significant issue affecting its financial situation and overall service delivery.
Additionally, the smart metre system will provide residents and the Municipality with access to a mobile app, which will be beneficial to both parties. As explained by Sukuma, the smart metres and the respective mobile app will fully digitise the Municipality.
Moreover, this will enable structures and systems to be implemented at the local government entity, allowing residents to report water-related issues, illegal water and electricity connections, infrastructure problems, and even faulty traffic lights. The system will ensure that the correct readings are secured at the metres, guaranteeing residents receive accurate tariffs at the end of the month while keeping residents informed of what is happening in town.
Additionally, the system will relieve pressure on the Newcastle Municipality’s call centres, allowing them to identify the exact location of technical or infrastructure-related issues so that the respective teams can respond within minutes and resolve the problem as soon as possible.
With the smart metres and their system providing the Municipality with an overview of the entire town, any fluctuations in electricity charge and water pressure can be detected, allowing for real-time water and electricity usage monitoring. This will enable residents to see the Newcastle Municipality tackling issues as they arise.
The system will also reduce the need for approximately 32 other service providers, according to Sukuma, allowing the Municipality to cut financial costs and expenditures.
This is a developing story and as soon as the system is ready to be implemented, the Newcastle Municipality will be able to provide Newcastillians with further information.
As the Newcastle Municipality prepares to go digital and enhance its service delivery and revenue collection, what are your thoughts on the above? Share your views in the comment section below.
Comments 2
Just another looting initiative.
This type of system can easily be manipulated by the Municipality and is only financiallt beneficial to the service provider and Municipality.