Electricity supplied to 1 700 informal settlement households
Even though the Pangoville electrification project went over budget and had some delays, more than 1 000 households now have electricity.
The Mogale City Local Municipality is pleased to announced that their Electrification Project has drawn to a close. More than 1 700 households in Munsieville and Pangoville now have safe and properly billed electricity.
In a statement sent by Refilwe Mahlangu from the Mogale City Communications Department, the municipality said it was no secret that there had been persistent and continued growth in the number of informal settlements in South Africa.
Mogale City is no different and because those areas have no formal electricity supply, communities have resorted to connecting electricity illegally, causing problems for neighbouring informal settlements as had been the case with Pangoville informal settlement creating problems for the rest of Munsieville.
The statement said illegal connections in the Pangoville informal settlement had cost the municipality over R1 500 000 as they had to install pole-mounted transformers, replace transformer fuses and reconfigure the network.
“While addressing the settlement’s dire need for electricity in order to curb the power overload urgently, the municipality entered into an agreement with the national Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) for funding and implementation of an electrification project for the benefit of Pangoville in line with the Integrated National Electrification Programme (INEP),” read the statement.
This project consisted of three phases. The first phase which kicked off in the fourth quarter of the 2018/ 2019 financial year saw an infrastructure constructed to electrify 64 connections.
Phase two commenced at the beginning of the 2019/ 2020 financial year and a commitment was made to complete 679 household connections.
“This later increased to 1 080 household connections due to additional funding that was made available by the INEP fund.” The phase also included scope work and construction of medium and low voltage reticulation lines, followed by the installation of transformers, service connections, meters and household distribution ready-boards to complete over 1 060 electricity connections.
During the home stretch – phase three – between June 2020 and January 2021 an 11kV feeder line and its associated gears were constructed and installed to increase the supply capacity to Pangoville and Munsieville.
There were some delays and although the project was originally allocated R7 000 000 from the INEP fund, an additional R4 000 000 was re-allocated from other municipal projects to bring the project cost to R11 000 000. A further R6 500 000 was requested from the DMRE, increasing the total project cost to R17 500 000.
“Apart from compliance with our National Energy Regulator Licence, which is to ensure electricity access to poor households, Mogale City is making efforts to take a firm stance towards dealing with illegal connections which not only negatively impacts on public safety, but also municipal revenue and quality electricity supply.”
