The Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality has blamed ageing infrastructure, vandalism of substations, cable theft and illegal electricity connections for its ongoing failures to provide residents of Phuthaditjhaba with a reliable water and electricity supply.
Municipality spokesperson Thabo Kessah said water infrastructure in the area was very old as it had not been maintained over many years.
“The population has increased and the infrastructure cannot take the pressure. Sometimes water pipes burst and you find areas without water. You will find such instances everywhere in all areas of Maluti-a-Phofung,” said Kessah.
Kessah said the municipality would use the debt it collected in the past three months to deal with its service delivery issues.
“We managed to collect revenue of R134m in electricity, rates and taxes in three months. This will go a long way in helping us fix our problems and deal with our Eskom debt,” said Kessah.
He said the municipality owed Eskom R6,5bn.
Kessah said the municipality did not have enough money to fix damaged roads.
“We are dependent on infrastructure grants from the National Treasury. We cannot deal with all the issues on our own. For example, we need R2bn to fix the roads. We do not have this money. So to fix all our issues we will have to knock on the doors of the National Treasury, provincial treasury and departments of water and sanitation and transport. We might also go to private companies to assist us with TLBs [tractor-loader-backhoes] to improve our roads,” he said.
“We are also considering looking into how we can improve our security so that our water pump stations and power substations are not vandalised. We currently have security personnel guarding these properties and we would like to enhance the security capacity.”
A group of former ANC councillors who are now part of the coalition government running the municipality has vowed to ensure that residents receive clean water, electricity and proper road infrastructure.
The dissident councillors who formed MAP 16, a civic organisation that spoke out against corruption and maladministration in the municipality, gained power during the November local government elections.
MAP 16 spokesperson Mutlanyane Sekete said their movement had played a role in ensuring the embattled municipality made strides in getting back on its feet.
“When we took over the situation was bad, to an extent that we inherited a totally dysfunctional municipality. It owed Eskom over R6bn. This was due to corrupt elements and mismanagement of funds. This led to people not having faith in the municipality,” said Sekete.
“In the space of three months, from January to March, we managed to collect revenue of R134m from people who did not pay their electricity and other rates. This was quite a milestone having considered the misappropriation of funds that happened before. We appointed capable MMCs in the infrastructure and finance departments to put systems in place that will target big businesses that are owing. We traced this using an audit system.”
Sekete said the water crisis in the area was the result of an unstable water board and seven water pump stations that were not working due to vandalism.
“Currently, the water board does not have a permanent senior management. It does not have a permanent CEO. This affects its operations. We have advertised positions to fill these vacancies so that we can ensure our people, the majority of whom reside in rural areas, get water,” said Sekete.
“Another issue is the pump stations. We did not issue out a tender to have them fixed because we did not have enough money to pay the contractors. So we got a skilled technician who has experience in fixing pump stations to assist us. As a result we had two stations fixed and this led to one of the communities getting water. We are looking at getting more technicians to fix the other stations.”
Sekete said there was a problem of the vandalism of electricity meter boxes in the area.
He said MAP 16 would push for the municipality to hold public consultation meetings with community members to determine the appropriate ways to address the challenges they are facing.
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