Gauteng electricity and water crisis ahead of voter registration weekend

The Gauteng government is trying to solve the province’s gargantuan water and electricity crisis – in time for voter registration this coming weekend.

For two decades, the province has been plagued with a water- and electricity-supply crisis.

Communities have been at the mercy of random, unscheduled power cuts, with some areas being without electricity for months and long periods of limited or no water supply.

The province’s departments of human settlements, urban planning, cooperative governance and traditional affairs sat down with Eskom, mayors of the affected municipalities and the relevant water entities, saying it was “very concerned about the constant water and electricity outages”.

“We implore our communities to remain calm and allow us to pursue lasting solutions,” said MEC Lebogang Maile.

Maile said Gauteng has experienced rapid urbanisation in the past couple of years and this has put a strain on basic service delivery.

“It has become even clearer to us that urbanisation has a direct bearing on the supply of water and electricity in our province.”

The province needs billions to help its ailing municipalities:

• Rand West City – R1.747 billion
• Emfuleni – R1.752 billion
• Mogale City – R731 million
• Merafong – R296 million

“From just looking at these few municipalities, one can easily get an appreciation of the fact that the solutions are not going to be overnight,” said Maile.

Here’s whats breaking down

• Khutsong North – two transformers are not working;
• Bekkersdal – the electrification of homes is not yet complete;
• Jacobs dry area – electricity provision has been reduced, even though the community is paying for their services.
• Eikenhof substation has aged infrastructure that keeps tripping. This substation supplies electricity to three water reservoirs.
• Klipriversberg reservoir has 26% capacity, which creates serious supply challenges.
• Naledi and Emndeni– residents have had no electricity for three months. This has sparked community protests that led to the torching of a Rea Vaya bus.
• The City of Ekurhuleni is faced with sinkhole challenges, with the sewage system having collapsed in the South areas.
• Mogale City Local Municipality is plagued with illegal connections, land invasion on mining areas and four broken transformers responsible for electricity to four areas.

Some of these problems are caused by system overload due to illegal connections which result in damage and failure of critical equipment such as transformers and mini-substations.

Eskom demands payment from defaulting municipalities

The power giant has taken a tough stance on defaulting municipalities. It refuses to replace damaged infrastructure and restore power supply without first conducting audits.

Angry communities often prevent Eskom staff from conducting audits which has a direct impact on electricity supply.

Eskom`s load reduction in high-density areas during peak hours (5am – 10am) and (5pm -10pm) is implemented in areas where there is meter bypassing, ghost vendors, illegal connections, and cable theft.

Eskom also requires payment according to the supply agreement within 15 days of invoice. But municipalities can only bill and collect up to 60 days later.

This creates massive cash flow problems for municipalities.

Voter registration weekend

The Disaster Management Team and Saps are on high alert to respond to any potential disasters that may ensue during the voter registration period.

On Thursday, during a status update meeting, the IEC said voting stations will officially be opened from
8am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.

But if there are still voters in the queues at closing time, the IEC said it will ensure those people are included to the voters roll.

Gauteng has 2,815 voting stations, including 271 temporary voting stations.