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The Eastern Chamber of Commerce and Industry calls for action for energy crisis

This statement comes in light of the increased energy-related problems like load-shedding and cable theft.

The Eastern Chamber of Commerce and Industry has released a press statement displaying their frustrations over the ongoing energy crisis on the East Rand.

The statement reads as follows:
Industry in the Springs, Brakpan and Nigel areas have many concerns with the current energy situation in South Africa.

The manufacturing sector and various political and civil organisations have been warning the government for years that load-shedding would have a devastating effect on our ageing infrastructure.

We now have ever-increasing numbers of substations crashing and leaving areas in the dark. In the last three years, the far eastern region of Ekurhuleni has had three major infeed substations catching fire.

The JVA bulk substation, the Springs Munic substation and now the Kwa Thema infeed substation, all of these situations result in temporary fixes being put in place that experience shows us, are unstable. The repairs to the sub-stations end up taking years.

Added to this instability there is a crime wave consisting of cable theft and theft and vandalism against infrastructure that seems to be increasing every day.

When we add all of these things together, they add up to electricity outages that businesses and industries are experiencing at a level where their very existence is under threat.

Load-shedding and crime added together are resulting in an already financially stretched Ekurhuleni failing to keep up with the maintenance of our energy reticulation system. Added to this, the more hours that are spent in blackouts, the less revenue the city earns.

We are now not merely facing an electricity-generating crisis but a gradual collapse of our distribution and municipal reticulation infrastructure, as well as a threat to the Municipal Financial Model.

We need to redirect resources to the maintenance, re-building and protection of these assets as a matter of urgency.

The low-lying fruit in that operation is to take the crime seriously by accepting that we are in a war against the criminals; cable theft must be dealt with decisively, doing whatever it takes, and punishment must fit the crime.

Crime against infrastructure must be punished through severe sentences that will act as a deterrent – be it cable thieves or white-collar workers behind it.

If we do not get tough now, within five years we will be presiding over a wasteland. In the Springs precinct alone, there were around 260 cable thefts reported over a 12-month period.

Every one of these outages costs many businesses, on a conservative estimate, around eight hours (sometimes these outages can last four days).

The number of electrical faults being experienced due to the failing infrastructure is on the increase as is the number of dips and surges being experienced, indicating the declining quality of power being distributed.

All of this added to load-shedding is putting enormous stress on commerce and industry and one would think it could not get worse.

But no, the Ekurhuleni bureaucracy manages to shoot its own goal, because they are incapable of managing overtime.

They impose a blanket 40-hour overtime limit that results in even critical service departments not being on standby at night or on weekends.

This results in, if there is a power outage at 17:00 on a Friday afternoon, the outage will not be investigated until Monday morning at 07:30. This means that electricity is likely to be out for 50 or 60 hours.

This is of course a massive inconvenience if you are a householder, but if you are a very large factory, this costs millions of rand.

The real stupidity here, though, is that the lost revenue to the city would far outweigh the cost of the overtime.

Overtime abuse should not be tolerated but should be handled through serious consequence management i.e. firing and the laying of criminal charges.

The executive of the Eastern Gauteng Chamber of Commerce and Industry implores the city manager to end this short-sighted policy immediately.



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