Twizza, the biggest employer in Komani, in the Eastern Cape, has threatened to uproot and move its business elsewhere if the crisis-riddled Enoch Mgijima municipality carries on failing to supply basic services.

Komani businesses are angry about poor service delivery. Twizza’s threat to leave comes after business tried hard to turn the situation around, including writing to the provincial government, which failed to assist. Their last resort was to write to President Cyril Ramaphosa pleading for presidential intervention.

The Komani Border-Kei Chamber of Business (BKCOB) convened a meeting with members of the Black Management Forum, Queenstown Ratepayers Association and members of civic organisations to discuss ways to get the government to mend its ways and allow businesses to function properly.

Ken Clark, owner of Twizza and Crickley Dairy, said Komani would soon end up like Lichtenburg in the North West, which saw dairy company Clover shutting its doors due to a lack of municipal services.

The main bugbear for business in Komani is the unreliable and decaying municipal electricity network. Many are forced to spend a fortune on diesel and petrol for generators to keep businesses and factories functioning.

The Enoch Mgijima municipality is unable to pay its Eskom account, while simultaneously trying to pay off its historical debt of R500m.

Komani BKCOB chair and businessman Mark Wilson said despite the municipality being placed under an administrator, the situation had worsened.

“The main reason for this is because there is so much infighting in the ruling party that no-one is interested in getting the town in order. There are factions in the municipality. There is one that is hell-bent on remaining in power and turning this town into a ghost town. We have tried our best to communicate and resolve issues in our town with the powers that be, but unfortunately their hands are also tied and there is no way we can look anywhere else, short of writing to the president for intervention again.”

Enoch Mgijima pays Eskom between R20m and R25m every month and has a wage bill of R28m, which means the municipality has monthly expenditure of about R53m.

The municipality only collects R9m a month from electricity sales – its revenue collection projections were 6.6 times more, at R60m a month.

Clark said if Twizza had been losing the kind of kind of money Enoch Mgijima was losing every month, he would have shut the doors immediately.

“We are living from hand to mouth every day and the electricity system is about to collapse.”

Enoch Mgijima municipality was placed under administration in 2019 because of its failure to collect revenue, its struggles to pay salaries, failure to service its Eskom debt and for its poor to no service delivery.

Administrator Monwabisi Somana said for any municipality to be put under administration, it showed that the rot was deep. He confirmed the mismanagement of the municipality and the deteriorating provision of services.

Somana said some of the issues the municipality encountered included political interference in the business of the municipality and the lack of technical expertise in critical departments.

“There are many inefficiencies in our systems. We do not have a lot of technical capacity in the technical services department. We also have a huge problem of politicisation of any activity we are involved in, resulting in them losing their intended purpose.”

Somana said he had submitted reports to the provincial department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs and the executive council also knew about the goings-on at the municipality.