Tshwane mayor Kgosientsho Ramokgopa “lied” about terminating the electricity smart meter contract on Tuesday‚ the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Wednesday.

Instead‚ the party said‚ an agreement had been reached between the contractor and the council in March.

According to the DA‚ as a result‚ the municipality will have to pay PEU Capital Partners more than R1.2-billion in agreement-exit penalties over two years.
The council has already paid PEU more than R830-million for the ill-fated contract.

The DA's shadow MMC for finance Lex Middleberg said: "This means that the ratepayers of Pretoria are called upon to pay the price of eight Nkandlas to exit this contract."

The municipality announced its decision to terminate the contract on Tuesday‚ but Middleberg claimed that in actual fact Ramokgopa and municipal manager Jason Ngobeni had been negotiating an exit agreement since early March‚ and on March 27‚ PEU presented the municipality with four contract exit options.

"The mayor chose 'Option B' that will have more catastrophic consequences for the finances of the city over the next two years‚" he said.

Middleberg said Ramokgopa had intended making the announcement during his State of the City address on Thursday for minimum attention.

"However‚ the claim of unilateral termination was published yesterday after the city became aware of the DA's intended press conference to reveal the terms of the exit contract‚" Middleberg said on Wednesday.

The DA has called on Ramokgopa and Ngobeni to resign with immediate effect.