Speaker, I rise to thank the hon Zulu for taking the opportunity to raise in the House the matter of the electrification of the area of Nongoma, and also to convey, through him, a message to the entire community of KwaZulu-Natal that we are aware that there are major backlogs in that province, and in particular in the areas around Ulundi and Nongoma, which do not have electricity.
We have plans to continue with the electrification programme. As you know, government set itself the target of ensuring access to electricity for all formal households by 2012 and universal access by 2014. We believe that, with the support of communities and Members of Parliament like him, we will be able to meet the target.
Hon Zulu raised the important point of paying for electricity. I want to indicate that, as members of portfolio committees, you should also help the municipalities to get the necessary amounts of money that they are owed by consumers of electricity like government departments, individuals who can afford it, and industry and businesses.
The challenge we have is that the lack of payment for electricity results in the inability of municipalities to pay Eskom and then Eskom ends up cutting off the supply to communities and to municipalities in particular. The end result is that those unfortunate members of the community who are supposed to have access to free basic electricity cannot have access to it because the total supply has been cut off.
There are quite a number of government departments that owe municipalities and Eskom. Through this House, I would like to make a special appeal to them to pay. You will remember that earlier this year electricity to communities in the Free State was cut off, primarily because of the huge debts that state-owned enterprises, as well as government departments, had to pay to municipalities. I want to say to hon Zulu that we are on track to ensuring that we popularise the need for payments, but we also need your support to ensure that. Thank you. [Applause.]