Unpaid vendors threaten to stop selling electricity
Electricity vendors in Nelson Mandela Bay have threatened to stop selling power on behalf of the city if they are not paid.
This as contracts between the municipality and the city’s 94 prepaid electricity vendors came to an end on June 30.
The non-payment of vendors, who are paid on commission, has led to some having to lay off workers.
Revenue management and customer care director Mbuzeli Nogqala said on Wednesday several vendors had threatened to end their partnership with the city if they were not paid.
“Some of the vendors have threatened us and said they will stop selling. These are compliant vendors and they do have a leg to stand on,” he said.
“They have come to us and told us this is not sustainable.
“These are the vendors we are worried about as the delays are attributed to the metro.”
Nogqala said the delays were largely as a result of staff shortages in the city’s legal services department which is meant to be drawing up new contracts with the vendors.
“The object was to renew all 94 but due to certain factors we couldn’t do that.
“We said to legal services to sort out the contracts but it basically took them 5½ months because there are human resource challenges there,” Nogqala said.
The delays were further caused by the holidays and the need to create new tender IDs.
Nogqala said of the 94 vendors, only 47 were compliant.
Twelve vendors recently signed agreements which would be sent to the supply chain department, while eight vendors were yet to sign critical declaration forms.
Once the agreements had been signed and processed, the compliant vendors would be paid.
Nogqala said they would use the next four days visiting these vendors to get them to sign the documents.
He said the compliant vendors would be paid in three weeks while 27 vendors – most of whom were not compliant – would also receive visits from the city.
“For as long as they don’t comply there is nothing to do where payments are concerned.”
Acting CFO Jackson Ngcelwane said paying the vendors without a contract and service level agreement in place would lead to irregular expenditure.
“This is not a case of the municipality refusing to pay but we have to avoid incurring irregular expenditure at all costs otherwise the auditorgeneral is going to highlight that,” Ngcelwane said.
One of the vendors, who asked not to be named, said the last six months had been extremely stressful on his business.
“The impact has been huge because staff can’t be paid and they put a lot of stress on me, thinking it’s me,” he said.
“We are trying to grow a business and it has been incredibly difficult.
“How do you do that without any money but you still have to do the work of selling?”
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