Angry residents and business owners in Mthatha have lashed out at King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) municipal bosses, accusing them of not caring about their wellbeing due to constant power outages experienced in several parts of the town.
This despite the Eastern Cape government giving the local authority R160-million in 2015 to fix its erratic electricity supply.
At the time, the municipality had assured people that outages would become a thing of the past.
Even municipal spokesman Sonwabo Mampoza had gone as far as explaining that, with the massive financial injection from provincial government, they would be able to upgrade their substations and ensure they were interconnected to each with power cables.
This, he argued at the time, would ensure that even if there was a power outage, it would still be able to get electricity from each of the city’s four biggest power substations.
But several businesses in the central business district had been battling rolling power outages since last week.
OR Tambo District Chamber of Business president Vuyisile Ntlabati said the business community had lost millions of rands in “rotten” stock and potential income since the outages surfaced last week. “We don’t have backup generators. It’s [current situation] is killing businesses,” he said.
He claimed some businesses had complained of rotting goods, while others were now forced to buy in small quantities.
“We have to pay staff for doing nothing,” he said.
Mthatha Ratepayers and Residents Association spokesman Madyibi Ngxekana accused municipal authorities of failing to notify Mthatha citizens about the blackouts.
Mthatha lawyer Mvuzo Notyesi, who represented the late Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in her failed bid for the Qunu family home, wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday that Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Zweli Mkhize should be preparing to put KSD under administration. “We must come together and sort out our beloved Mthatha. We cannot allow our area to be destroyed right under our eyes… Corruption, nepotism, powermongering and neglect of the people cannot be tolerated.”
Yesterday he said lawyers were battling to access crucial e-mailed court documents.
Mampoza attributed last week’s power outages to multiple power cable faults which had overloaded. He said as a result it took two days to restore electricity.
He claimed due to Monday’s strong galeforce winds, a rooftop from a house had been blown onto an Eskom bulk powerline.
Power was restored around 8pm on Monday.Then there was also load-shedding by the power utility. He said they had used their WhatsApp group, Facebook page and a local community radio station to communicate the power outages.