By Chris Khumalo

ETHEKWINI Municipality is making good progress in delivering free basic water and electricity to communities in a programme that is targeted at the poorest of the poor in the city, mayor Obed Mlaba said yesterday.

Delivering the state of the city address, which looked at the progress made in Durban in the past ten years, Mlaba said this programme aimed at the poor gave the first 600 kilolitres of water free of charge, with people living in properties valued under R30 000 not paying fixed charges for water.

"The first 50 kWh of electricity is free to residents using less than 130 kWh of electricity," said Mlaba. He said presently 82%of the city's population had access to a safe basic water service. More than 70% have access to waterborne sewage and 75% of low-income households have access to free basic water services, he said.

The demarcation process that took place before the 5 December, 2000 local government elections saw the city of Durban incorporating huge rural areas like Umbumbulu and Greater Inanda into the city. Since then moves have been afoot to bring services to these impoverished areas.

"In 1994, what is now the eThekwini municipality had one million people with a good piped water supply and paying for the service, one million people with a poor piped water supply and no billing system in place and one million people without a piped water supply.

"Today less than 150 000 people remain without a piped water supply and the rest are receiving a good supply and are being billed normally for the service. "A total of 213 000 families receive free basic water each month. This is truly amazing," said Mlaba.

On the electricity front, Mlaba said eThekwini Electricity had electrified nearly 200 000 previously unelectrified homes in the past 10 years. "This was done using existing infrastructure wherever possible, upgrading where necessary and building vast new infrastructure in previously unelectrified areas," said.

At first city's own funds were used but since 1999 funds had been sourced from the National Electricity Regulator. This has eased the burden of capital expenditure on customers. "In the same decade our number of supplies to local business has grown by 50%, reflecting the healthy state of our local economy.

"Every effort has been made to keep the price of electricity affordable to the extent that there has been a decrease in the price in real terms of nearly 20% in this period while the energy sold per employee has risen from 3.8 million kWh per year to 5.3 million kWh per year," he said.

In 2000 and in 2001 eThekwini Electricity won the prestigious Electricity Supply Industry Excellence Award (Gold) for the Best Municipal Electricity Distributor.

SOURCE: - BuaNews