MXOLISI KAUNDA
From the onset, I profusely apologise to all the eThekwini Municipality customers who are experiencing intermittent provision of basic services such as electricity and water.
Chapter 7 of the Constitution spells out clearly that the City has the responsibility of providing basic services to communities in a sustainable manner.
We regret that there have been circumstances that are beyond our control, in some parts of the City, which have been a hindrance in us living up to this Constitutional mandate.
It is common knowledge that the City buys electricity from the power utility, Eskom, to the tune of R13.2 billion per year.
We then subsequently provide this electricity to customers in accordance with tariffs approved by Nersa.
The power utility has recently experienced several breakdowns at seven of its coal-powered stations.
The breakdowns have resulted in the deficit of about 10 000MW from the national grid.
At some point, this has led to stage six load shedding being introduced. We were then compelled by this announcement to cut power in accordance with our load shedding schedule. This is a decision that is always difficult to take because we fully understand the negative impact it has on paying customers.
We understand that many businesses are losing hours of trading and production due to load shedding. The loss of income and the expenditure on alternative sources of power is amounting to hundreds of millions of rand daily. Some businesses have been left with no option but to temporarily close some of their outlets. This means their employees will now have to work short time, which has a knock-on effect of them being unable to pay their bills at the end of the month.
This is the last thing the City needs, taking into consideration the fact that we are still recovering from the devastating floods. This natural disaster occurred while we were still reeling from the aftermath of the civil unrest and Covid-19. This situation, if not arrested, is indeed going to impact negatively on the already vulnerable economy that we are trying very hard to grow and create much-needed jobs.
The implementation of load shedding has a domino effect on the provision of many basic services. For instance, for us to pump water to various reservoirs from treatment plants, we need power especially given our topography. This is among the reasons there has been a surge of areas experiencing water outages. It is not because the City does not have capable personnel to discharge their responsibilities, but it is circumstances beyond our control. This also impacts negatively on sewerage pump stations that need power to pump raw sewerage to waste water treatment works. It also strains our daily administration processes as some of our walk-in customer services centres are sometimes unable to assist customers because of load shedding. This creates frustration among customers who may have taken the day off work to query their accounts or to apply for certain services.
Since the introduction of these unceasing black load shedding, we have lost count of the amount of money we have spent replacing mini substations and transformers. Electricity infrastructure is not designed to be switched on and off frequently. What is also compounding our woes is that when the power is restored after load shedding, there is usually an increase in demand because households rush to use different appliances simultaneously. This conduct overloads the system, resulting in some mini substations tripping while others burst completely.
These power outages also create fertile ground for thieves to steal our cables. Our teams have their hands full having to locate where cables have been stolen before they are able to start working on the fault. This causes some clients to endure power outages even outside of the load shedding schedule. We also have instances where there are normal cable faults which are also difficult to identify.
A large number of cable faults are also as a result of damage to cables during excavations. These faults then only occur when the ground is wet. Once they have been located, there are occasions where our teams must dig deeper into the ground to fix these faults. Some communities become impatient and resort to violent protests thinking that they are being ignored, yet the severity of the fault determines how long it will take to get fixed.
Areas such as Phoenix and uMlazi have been on the receiving end of these challenges. They have sometimes gone for days without water and power. This triggered service delivery protests that saw some roads being blockaded with burning tyres, which we condemn. However the community’s anger is understood, and it is disinformation that they have been ignored because they are poor. In Phoenix, there were even reports from some community leaders that the area was experiencing the disruption of these services because of the racial tensions that were associated with the civil unrest.
This boarders on nothing but relentless disinformation. We call on such leaders to refrain from playing the race card in this regard. We call on them to be mindful of the fact that scores of people died in this area during the unrest. What happened in this area is a chapter that we are working very hard to close.
Continuing to invoke this unfortunate incident as reason for services being interrupted could derail our efforts of social cohesion and plunge the City into racial tension that could have dire consequences. We treat all residents equally, irrespective of where they reside. Race is not a determining factor for the City to provide basic services as we know the pain structural racism inflicted on most people of this country.
Illegal connections are also creating problems for the electricity grid. Every year more than seven percent of our power is stolen. It is also one of the reasons that in certain areas there are power outages outside of the of load shedding schedule, because the transformers are overloaded.
We are trying daily to disconnect illegal connections, but as soon as we turn our backs, communities reconnect again. It is the responsibility of us all to nip this scourge in the bud or risk permanently experiencing this inconvenience. It cannot be left to the City alone to fight this unlawful conduct. Members of the community need to be vigilant and report this illegal behaviour.
Last year we introduced water rationing in several areas that are serviced by the Durban Heights Water Treatment Works. This was because of the uMngeni Water Board being unable to provide us with enough water as per our contract with them. This was after they decommissioned Reservoir 3 for refurbishment. This is a huge reservoir and without it, the City had to rely on reservoir 2 which battled to meet the demand.
The flood damage to two water aqueducts that delivered raw water from Nagle Dam to this facility for treatment added to their problems. We are however elated to announce that Reservoir 3 has since been recommissioned and one aqueduct is also back on track. Work is at an advanced stage to get the other aqueduct to feed the system by June. These new developments are therefore going to assist in alleviating water rationing in affected areas. In the meanwhile, we are building capacity at all our reservoirs and are working towards ensuring that the system is stabilised as soon as possible.
We concede that there have been challenges with the collection of solid waste in some parts of the City. We sincerely apologise to residents that have been affected. Last year, we took the decision of cutting overtime by 50 percent. This was not well received by several employees, and we suspect that to vent their dissatisfaction, some started a go-slow which resulted in the backlog of refuse collection in some areas. We have since engaged with them through our labour relations forums and the backlog has been cleared in many areas. Anyone found to be undermining the council will face the full might of disciplinary processes.
We are pleased that our efforts to clean the City are beginning to pay dividends. We are noticing a huge difference in the central business district and many other areas. However, we would like to appeal to residents to work with us to rid eThekwini of litter. It must not be the responsibility of the City alone to ensure a clean Durban. We must all be good residents and dispose of garbage responsibly. Let us all be the change that we want to see, and by working together in this regard, our City could be the envy of all.
We are putting much effort into cutting our verges and overgrown grass at parks in the inner-city and other communities. We are aware of the complaints from the public where there is overgrown grass. Grass cutting takes place in different cycles. Grass becomes overgrown because of the rainfall that we have experienced recently. However, we want to bring to the attention of the public that we have had numerous incidents where employees in certain communities have been intimidated by groupings calling themselves business forums.
Recently, four brush cutters were robbed at gun point. And this is not the first time an incident like this has happened. It is worrying because it instils fear among our employees who become reluctant to work in certain areas. It begs the question, how is the City going to provide services if its employees are not safe? Some of these culprits are known in communities but residents choose to keep quiet.
The City cannot afford to deploy security guards for each worker as they carry out their duties. Our libraries located in residential communities have also not been spared. As communities, we have the responsibility of protecting Municipal employees and to guard facilities rolled out by government for our own benefit. Our failure to do so could result in service delivery grinding to a halt.
Having outlined some of the challenges facing the City, we ask customers to bear with us. We are doing everything in our power to minimise the inconvenience brought about by these unfortunate circumstances.
It would be remiss of me not to thank all those who visited the City during the festive season. We will forever be indebted to them for the love they have shown our City. Our work is clearly cut out to ensure that when visitors return to our beautiful City, we can meet all their needs. I wish you all a prosperous New Year.
Mxolisi Kaunda is the mayor of eThekwini Municipality.
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