By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
City of Tshwane Executive mayor Cilliers Brink says they are looking at procuring and generating at least 1,000 megawatts of electricity in the next three years.
Brink briefed the media at the decommissioned Rooiwal power station near Hammanskraal on Monday, where he outlined plans for the metro’s electricity master plan.
“Any municipality in this country that is not answering the question – what are we going to do about load shedding – is not doing its job,” Brink said, addressing journalists.
“This is what the City of Tshwane is doing – earlier this year we appointed an energy task team, people from across departments in the City of Tshwane to look at critical issues of how we can be more independent of Eskom,” he said.
He said Tshwane uses about 2,600 megawatts of electricity, so the 1,000 megawatts would have a significant impact in cutting reliance on Eskom electricity.
“We also have to look at the configuration of our network because if we produce our energy independent from Eskom, it has to be fed in to the network. There are technical issues that need to be looked at,” he said.
He said Tshwane is also exploring a contingency plan in the event of a total grid collapse in South Africa.
“We also have to look at what all institutions, all institutions in this country have to look at what do we do if there is a national grid collapse. There has to be disaster management plans. As unlikely as that eventuality is, if we are not preparing for it, we are not doing our job, “said Brink.
Last week, the Tshwane Council approved a public participation report for the proposed 40-year lease of the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations in terms of Regulation 35 of the Municipal Asset Transfer Regulations.
Brink said the two power stations had fallen into disuse partly because of the high cost of stockpiling coal for them, a lack of planning for the future and the need for significant capital investment.
“A lot of the infrastructure stands but there is no real power being generated here and that’s been the case since 2012 or 2013. We do have generation capacity here but it is not enough. We do have an inlet into the grid. And that is also the case with the Pretoria West power station,” he said.
Brink said the city will prepare an energy indaba at which it will take requests for proposals about the stations and solicit requests for information on independent clean energy generation.
Meanwhile the Congress of the People (COPE) in Tshwane has called for the immediate resignation of Brink.
In a lengthy statement on Monday, the partys Ofentse Moalusi labelled Brink’s tenure at the helm of the city as a “disgraceful failure after another to the dire detriment of Tshwane residents”.
“Brink has plunged our once glorious city into a state of disaster. I have observed him in the past few months moving our city from one disaster to another. His handling of our workers’ plight is indicative of a leader who is not in touch with the reality or the hardships that our workers are subjected to.
“His arrogant approach to the struggles of predominantly black people is very painful to witness. The courts can never be a platform to use to resolve any workers’ disputes and social calamities faced by our people. We cannot punish the workers for the bad administration that this city has been subjected to since 2016.”
This comes amid an ongoing labour dispute between the city and the South African Municipal Workers Union, which has led to massive delays in refuse collection, burning of landfill sites and vandalism of substations and other city infrastructure.
Moalusi claims there is irregular expenditure of R200 million per month at the city.
“The city has been unable to correctly bill its customers for a considerable period of time. Predominantly, our residents are subjected to a heap of uncollected waste on their doorsteps. The city is not able to honour its short-term commitments as they fall due.
“This is evident in our inability to pay our key suppliers Eskom and Rand Water. Our short-term liabilities far exceed the short-term assets. In normal business practice, this is a sign that we are not as liquid at all as the city.
“We have also learned with dismay that the city has missed the deadline to submit the annual financial statements to the office of the auditor-general. There can only be one reason for missing the deadline: this administration is busy doing what is called ‘brilliant accounting’, and they are cooking the books. The city’s financial management system has collapsed.”
He adds that the city is not able to collect revenue from residents who are keen to settle their accounts.
“Currently, it is estimated that the city is losing R1.2 billion per annum to water leakages, illegal water connections, and water meters that are either not working or are being sabotaged due to vandalism.