Electrification drive continues in North West

Friday, February 26, 2016

Pretoria - A total of 13 422 qualifying households in 104 villages, townships and small towns in the North West will access electricity for the first time this year, North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo said on Friday.

“In an effort to better our current delivery rate of 87% electrification roll out, 13 422 qualifying households in 104 villages, townships and small dorpies that never had electricity before across the province will be electrified in 2016 at an estimated cost of R279 million,” said the Premier.

This as he was delivering the 2016 State of the Province Address (SOPA).

The Premier said as part of the National Development Plan (NDP), the province has begun the process of crafting Village Development Plans for all the 767 villages of the province.

“To date, we have finalised two village development plans per municipality across all 23 municipalities and intend to complete all 767 plans by the end of May 2016.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Local Government and Human Settlements is working with the national Department of Human Settlements to implement an electronic housing needs register project to clean up and verify all housing beneficiaries across municipalities.

“The preliminary investigations have been done and they revealed that so far, no public representatives have benefited from the government housing programme.

“However, some public servants have been discovered to have unduly benefited. Confirmation with their employer departments is underway and appropriate action will be taken at the right time,” said the Premier.

Also, the province will spend just over R2.1 billion during 2016/17 in the construction of 12 581 RDP units across 7 680 sites. - SAnews.gov.za