Ekurhuleni’s mayor and MMCs visit Kellogg’s plant in New Era
Load-shedding woes for local businesses.
As part of the Mayoral Friday Service Delivery, the executive mayor of Ekurhuleni, Sivuyile Ngodwana, took The People’s Government campaign to Springs and Kwa-Thema.
This was part of the mayor’s initiative to re-energise public leadership visibility on the ground and accelerate the turnaround time for public complaints on service delivery.
The first stop for the delegation of MMCs was at the Kellogg’s SA plant in New Era, where many factories have been negatively affected by the rolling blackouts.
The visit followed an IDP and Budget Consultative Forum meeting, called by the MMC for Finance: EPMO, Information and Communication Technology, Clr Nkululeko Dunga, at the Alberton Community Hall on May 12.
The meeting addressed some of the challenges businesses in the metro faced and how best to remedy them.
During the seating, they raised the issues of load-shedding, getting off the grid, and exploring ways to generate an additional 1000MW.
Kellogg’s invited the mayor to the plant to let him see the damages the company had incurred because of unplanned water and electricity outages.
Kellogg’s corporate affairs director Zandile Mposelwa told the delegation that, from January this year, the company had lost millions in production.
“We lose a lot of meals and approximately 84 hours of production during unscheduled electricity and water outages because we have to stop production for a while, which leads to waste.
“This is costly to the company and loss of revenue,” Mposelwa said.
She added that the company had plans to open a noodles and chips hub in the country, but because of the rolling blackouts, they took it to Swaziland.
“The plant could have created employment opportunities in our country, but we could not risk the business.
“This investment in the Kingdom of Eswatini allows the company to have better market access and accelerate noodles market penetration into the African continent as the Kingdom of Eswatini is a member of The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the SADC, the Southern African Customs Union and the African Continental Free Trade Area.
ALSO READ: Ekurhuleni meets businesses
“Therefore, it is still beneficial to the business,” she said.
Though Kellogg’s has lost a lot of revenue, the business has not retrenched any staff and does not plan to.
After the plant tour, Ngodwana said they would look into the challenges raised by the company and come up with remedies in due course.
