Call to write off power and water debts

ABOUT 80 residents from Salt Lake and Windvogel took to the streets yesterday demanding the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality write off electricity and water debt incurred by the poor.

Dressed in red T-shirts, the group, most of them women, marched from Port Elizabeth's Salt Lake suburb to an open space opposite the Cleary Park shopping centre, where they handed their memorandum of demands and a black refuse bag with electricity accounts they claimed amounted to R50000 to municipal official Dade Scanbe

SA Communist Party (SACP) deputy chairman in the Bay David Davidson said while they opposed electricity theft, they understood why residents went that route. "The municipality must clear all accounts of people living in this metro. If your account is behind, they block your electricity. "We are sick and tired of this municipality.