The executive mayor of Govan Mbeki Municipality, Nhlakanipho Zuma, responded to Bethal residents’ demands during a media conference held in the council chambers in Secunda on Thursday, August 11.
The residents marched from Bethal Mall to the municipal offices and Eskom offices in Bethal on Monday, July 18 where they handed over a memorandum to officials of Eskom and the municipality.
In this memorandum, the residents demanded the notified maximum demand (NMD) for Bethal be lifted, the qualifications of the municipal electricians be emailed to them, that certain electricians be removed from the municipality and that payments to Eskom and Rand Water be ring-fenced.
Zuma said the electricity supply agreement contract between the municipality and Eskom stipulated the NMD in Bethal will be 18.72MVA and in eMzinoni it is 8MVA, coming to a total of 26.72MVA.
“The adjustment of the NMD is an Eskom decision,” said Zuma.
This decision is based on the status of the network infrastructure of the municipality to distribute the load to businesses and residential areas which must be in a qualitative standard to not cause damage to Eskom’s infrastructure.
“We are working on upgrading the network and the rest of the infrastructure.
“We are in the last stages of the environmental impact assessments on the site where the 30MVA sub-station will be constructed.
“We will then begin constructing the sub-station.”
According to Zuma, this will take the capacity of electricity for Bethal and eMzinoni to 56MVA which will then exceed the current demand of 43MVA.
Zuma said rotational load-shedding cannot be suspended because it was implemented as a last resort to prevent Bethal and eMzinoni from total blackouts because of the collapse of the power system, especially during the winter.
“We take note of the residents’ demand to see the qualifications of our electricians, but because of the POPI Act, we may not share any personal information of our workers.
“The municipality is, however, in the process of acquiring the services of a private specialist company to vet the qualifications of our personnel.”
Payments made by the residents for water and electricity cannot be ring-fenced because, according to Zuma, the monthly bill for Bethal and eMzinoni residents for water and electricity is around R25 million, but the municipality only receives about R5 million from residents.
“It does not make any sense to ring-fence the money as it is not even sufficient to pay the bills.
“Ring-fencing the money will only make things worse, as we also need to do maintenance.
“Residents can view our proof of payment through their councillors or it can be made available on request.”
The Auditor-General reports from 2015 to 2022 are available on the municipality’s website, www.govanmbeki.gov.za.
Ideal Prepaid’s contract was terminated last year and the mayor opened a case against this company as well as officials involved in the irregular appointment.
The Hawks are currently investigating this case. Residents also demanded that former mayor and MMC of Planning and Development, Thandi Ngxonono, be suspended without pay until all cases pending against her are finalised, but Zuma said the municipality is not aware of any cases against her as the cases were thrown out for a lack of evidence.
However, the Hawks are investigating other cases and those who are involved will be charged and prosecuted.
The residents also demanded Empower Machite JV get full access to the municipality’s electricity grid.
Zuma said Empower Machite’s contract is with the Gert Sibande District Municipality, not with GMM.
“Even though this contract does give the service provider controlled access to the entire network of the municipality, the network still belongs to the municipality.
Illegal electricity connections and ghost vendors are also two of the biggest problems when it comes to electricity.
Zuma said the municipality is currently working with the Hawks to curb the problems with ghost vendors.
Other issues residents complained about in the memorandum include sewage spills, potholes, broken traffic lights, the maintenance of electricity infrastructure, clean drinking water, broken street lights, missing road signs, maintenance of stormwater drains, the dumping site, maintenance of the cemetery, vendors opposite the new mall, alcohol outlets around the N17 highway and a speed hump at Van der Hyde and Maine Avenue.
Zuma said the infrastructure of Bethal is very old and all these issues cannot be fixed overnight.
“The municipality is currently refurbishing the wastewater treatment plant.
“Once this is completed, pump stations will be prioritised.”
The mayor said GMM is assessing the material needed to repair the street lights and high mast lights and the speed hump will be constructed before the end of August.
“The dumping site on the Standerton road is currently maintained with inadequate equipment while we are waiting for a bulldozer.
“We urge the community to refrain from dumping rubbish in open spaces and help us in creating awareness because we recently launched a program about this.”
