Frustrations boiled over and harsh words were spoken when the top management of the municipality were hauled over the coals by residents about the crisis with electricity supply and the snail-like progress of Dr Enos Mabuza Drive, last night.

The meeting at the council chambers followed after residents of wards 15, 16 and 17 earlier, via Cllr Sanley van der Merwe, demanded an urgent face-to-face meeting with the council.

The constant power outages in the city’s central wards and the cause of them were hammered on by residents.

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The opening statements from the mayor, Sibongile Makushe, the Speaker, Mduduzi William Nkhata and the municipal manager, Mr Wiseman Khumalo, did not fly well with residents.
A number of attendees voiced the opinion that management was not committing themselves to an action plan and specifics about the upgrading of infrastructure.
The main cause of power outages is the Delta transformer which get its supply from directly from Eskom. Nkhata admitted that the underlying crisis with Delta, which was already identified in 2016, is the ageing of the transformer as well as the higher demand for electricity due to the city developing and growing.

The Delta Substation, built in 1979, was designed with a usable lifespan of 30 years. However, only minor upgrading of the substation has been done to increase its lifespan by ten more years.
The substation is now in its 43rd year and cannot be repaired anymore.

In 2017 the municipality appointed Prof Johan Delport to investigate the crisis. His suggestion was the development and building of a ring system. Then, should Delta should be down, it will still be possible to draw electricity from other substations.
The plan was tabled, approved and a budget was approved. Consultants were appointed, tenders put out and a three-year rollout plan approved. However, the plan, which would have cost around R180 million in 2019, was canned by the administration and the budget was reallocated to other projects.

Khumalo could not answer why the plan was scrapped but said the municipality has done maintenance and upgrading of the electrical system. He did, however, commit the municipality to reconsidering the plan for implementation and said that he would give feedback within two weeks. The mayor echoed this announcement and said she wanted service delivery to improve.

“We cannot just let a plan which seems to be workable lie round. We must investigate that,” said Makushe. 

The municipality further acknowledged that its Eskom account, which amounted to almost R1 billion at the end of February, was being addressed and that a first down payment of R263 million was recently made.

On the lagging of the Enos Mabuza project, Nkhata admitted there were serious design problems such as the steep topography of the road, poorly designed storm-water systems and the discovery of “sensitive” cables which are being used by Mediclinic Nelspruit.

Read more: Enos Mabuza to be completed later this year, says municipality

The lagging Enos Mabuza project. Photo: Chelsea Pieters.

Khumalo said they had spoken to the contractors and given instruction that the project had to be completed at the end of June with no option to extend the contract again.

Lowvelder will publish an in-depth article and analyses of the electrical woes of the city in next week’s edition.

> Photos: Linzetta Calitz