BETHAL – The Gert Sibande District Municipality (GSDM) and the Govan Mbeki Municipality formally introduced Enpower Machite at a meeting held at the Bethal Town Hall on Wednesday, 28 April, as the service provider who will be taking over payment of GMM’s Eskom bill and the upgrading of infrastructure for the towns of Bethal and eMzinoni for the next five years.
Residents, businessmen and employees of both GMM and GSDM attended.
After a presentation on Enpower Machite’s plans to recover money and make a profit, the disgruntled businessmen and residents stated that nothing new was being brought to the table.
Ms Rhuhlani Matshidze, the project director, used Bethal and eMzinoni’s electricity supply and network as an example of a “bucket of water with many holes that need to be closed up”.
She highlighted Bethal and eMzinoni’s challenges as:
– Reduced Notified Maximum Demand in Bethal/eMzinoni which causes rotational load shedding
– Infrastructure challenges
– Tariffs are outdated and not aligned to Eskom Time of Use (TOU) tariff.
-Customer information data not up to date (challenges in revenue collection).
– Not enough resources to manage and maintain network supply
– Lack of technology and systems
– Municipality to meeting the NERSA licence condition.
– Lack of industry experts to implement the holistic turnaround of the municipalities electricity division.
“We keep on adding electricity but we can’t pay for it. That is where we are now.
“The holes in the bucket are losses. We need to close them,” said Ms Matshidze.
Ms Virginia Teffo, project commercial director and execution, said: “The project is performance-based from the moment it was advertised.
“We come with our investment. We are not getting paid until the changes are being realised.”
Ms Teffo said over the past six weeks, the network has been analysed.
“We have been looking at how the network has been configured and how we are going to change it.”
She said this is not something that can be done “overnight”.
She highlighted that the electricity rates need to be aligned.
Ms Matshidze said residents can also play their part during peak times to reduce consumption of electricity by switching off geysers.
“You don’t need your geyser to be on for 24 hours, you can control your geysers. We need the pressure off, we need to manage the peaks,” said Ms Matshidze.
“We have begun, we are here, but we have to work together.”
Businessmen, political leaders and the media were then allowed to bring forward questions.
Not all questions were answered and for the most, were left with even questions and concerns.
The Ridge Times has since reached out to Ms Matshidze via email to clarify a few questions that were not answered.
Mr Ziyaad Dangor, spokesman of the Bethal and eMzinoni Community for Services (Becs) said it was unprofessional for GMM’s Cllr Dan Nhlapho to walk out during the meeting when being faced with hard-hitting questions.
“This just shows the utter disrespect and disregard that GMM has for us. He left the mayoral committee from GSDM to take over the meeting.
“The questions asked by us and the media were never answered. The entire meeting turned into a political battle,” said Mr Dangor.
He said the meeting was more to do with power, politics, greed and contract agreement, and for some who were there, it was for their interest and not for the interest of the larger Bethal and eMzinoni.
Becs had been invited to be part of the steering committee.
Mr Dangor said that there is no interest in being a part of this committee and that the project is flawed from the beginning.
“The residents are going to bleed even more. We are going to pay for the mishaps of GMM. Based on the non-reply on our questions in the meeting, it is safe for us to say that this process will never be successful.
“This whole thing is a fiasco. They are not calling a spade a spade, they are not being open and honest with us. Bethal’s electricity woes are going to go from bad to worse this winter,” said Mr Dangor.
He said that Becs is going full steam ahead with the legal process against the municipality. Some concerning matters were raised with regards to how the service provider was awarded the tender.
According to GSDM, the tender was advertised, however, they could not provide proof of this at the meeting.
