President Cyril Ramaphosa last week promised a new initiative to cure local authorities of their countless ills, citing as a model the Presidential eThekwini Working Group where local authorities, business and civic organisations have combined to try to save that stricken city.

KwaDukuza, battered by unprecedented summer power outages and now massive embezzlement of municipal money, a governing majority riven by factionalism and incompetence, urgently needs such support. We deserve our own Presidential Working Group.

Mayor Musa “Ali” Ngidi, missing in action for most of the summer electricity crisis, should unambiguously accept the helping hand proffered by organisations such as the iLembe Chamber of Commerce, the major estates and the Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers Association (Docrra). The latter has for months been trying to get a coherent account of the situation out of the municipality and has now called on the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to investigate.

There have been six major power outages since December 3 last year, in one case lasting 51 hours and there have been only five days free of a failure somewhere. Visitors have cancelled bookings or cut short existing ones, vowing never to return. Businesses have battled to keep operating and some major new industrial investors in the area are starting to look for targets to sue.

Cracks in the system
The Mayor’s Annual Report for 2023/24 tells us that between 2017 and 2024, our municipality increased total electricity capacity to KwaDukuza by a miniscule 1.7% a year, and this in one of the fastest growing urban areas in the country. Tellingly, between 2023 and 2024 the municipality redirected 8 MWV capacity away from its southern grid (Ballito) towards its northern grid (Stanger), reducing availability for its rates cash cow.

In the face of the impregnable silence of the municipality, it is impossible to know whether the move was blind ideology or intended to serve new developments such as Club Med. Irrespective, its impact has been devastating for the local economy. The tourist-rich southern electricity network, starved of power, collapsed in one of the hottest Januarys on record.

There are two root causes of the problem.

First, supply. A major new power station, Dukuza, is two years late in commissioning. And a new system to allow more effective isolation of faulty networks and the redistribution of loads (Scada) is similarly late.

There are huge problems with maintenance on a system that has been denied funds and competent staff and bubble gummed for years. Outage reports are redolent with reports of feeder trips, cable faults, blown jumpers and overloads.

Worse, it now appears the municipality’s way leave system whereby contractors can be advised of the location of key cables has fallen into disuse. Put simply, nobody is sure where anything is. Registered contractor rolls are in a mess and the last Auditor General’s Report flags tender management as a major problem, perhaps explaining why Ramaphosa recently proclaimed a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into KwaDukuza municipal tenders between 2018 to date.

The second problem is demand. Incredibly, it is now clear the municipality embarked on a major expansion of residential and tourist opportunities, the new mega billion Club Med is one, and a state-of-the-art industrial park, North Point, where some high energy consumption plants are situated, while bleeding the southern grid of capacity, failing to ensure additional supply and chronically neglecting basic maintenance.

The result has been chaos accompanied by an exponential growth in “energy loss”, the gap between what the municipality pays Eskom for its electricity and the money it gets back through reselling it to its consumers. Yet Provincial money made available to combat these losses through smart remote metering stood unspent for a year. That deficit reached R310-million by half year compared to R262-million last year. The council, in short, is heading for bankruptcy.

Mayor Ngidi clearly needs all the help he can get. And so do the residents. Bring on a Presidential Working Group.

Brian Pottinger’s family has lived on this coast for five generations. He is a member of the Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers Association and a former Editor and Publisher of the Sunday Times. These are his personal views.

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