The Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) reacted with fury after it emerged that the weekend power blackouts in Vanderbijlpark resulted from cable theft and unavailable maintenance items – ELM not having required equipment in stock to restore power quickly.

“The entire top management structure of ELM should be summarily dismissed for incompetence and charged with economic treason, especially ELM CFO Andile Dyakala who is still mismanaging finances with impunity across all municipal activities with disastrous results,” said GTCoC CEO Klippies Kritzinger.

This was after both national and provincial Governments held two high-profile conferences in Vanderbijlpark last week to assure residents and investors that both the Vaal River sewage pollution solution and massive new investment opportunities were on offer in the region.

Yet the investment-friendly words from the Deputy of Trade and Industry, Minister Fikile Majola, and Gauteng Premier David Makhura, were hardly covered by the media news cycle on Friday when Vanderbijlpark and surrounding townships went dark on Saturday morning and stayed that way well into the week.

That followed Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu spending a whole day in the Vaal last Tuesday, assuring residents that the Government would now finally manage the biggest threat to Vaal regional investment – poorly managed basic sewage infrastructure still polluting the Vaal River.

“Due to our financial state, we do not have 88 kv cable joints in our stores at the moment,” Acting ELM Municipal Manager Refilwe Mokgosi told Vaalweekblad over the weekend.

Organised business reacted with fury to what was described as an ELM management that had not learnt a single lesson from the crippling April power blackouts that paralysed business and communities.

Both Government conferences did not even address the known major threats to investment, that being bad management and uncontrollable infrastructure sabotage and cable-theft driven largely by corrupt ELM officials – and it was left to the GTCoC to remind Ministers of these threats.

A major new industry – medical cannabis cultivation – heavily promoted by the Government last week as a major Vaal “Cannabis Capital” investment opportunity – was hard hit by the power blackout forcing huge diesel expenditure.

“We know that Premier David Makhura fully supports the rapid development of new industry and economic expansion in the Vaal along with his national Government counterparts, but this latest power outage has hit us hard.

“I would far rather spend money on creating jobs and a just transition to green energy than pumping untold cash into diesel fossil fuel due to municipal mismanagement,” said Professor Benny de Beer, owner of CBD Full Spectrum in Vanderbijlpark.