MAP power crisis remains unresolved

By Emily Setona

QWAQWA – Councilor Shashapa Motaung has raised concern over delays in resolving the unreliable electricity supply in his ward, citing a negative impact on residents especially during funeral services.

Motaung who is former MMC of Electricity and Infrastructure under the previous Map16 coalition government, voiced lack of faith in explanations by the executive mayor of Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality since there was nothing new because the current leadership fails to implement some of the resolutions made.

“The leadership of this municipality are hard to advise; during the time of mayor Masetjhaba I advised the leadership that the electricity problem needs supervisors, it’s there on record. I even said in that meeting that as a department we had already identified the people who could do the job, but even today we are still saying the very same thing.”

Motaung said this after executive mayor of Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality Malekula Melato announced that , the issue of overtime for officials working on the electricity had been resolved and eight of them will be promoted following the advertisements of such posts.

MAP16 civic movement councillor Shashapa Motaung during council sitting.

“I think if I must be very explicit, for one to be able to develop a maintenance plan in an institution, it’s not a plan that belongs to only the mayor, it’s a plan led by MMCs. This is an institutional plan which can’t be a mere talk show; it might be an achievable plan that has targets. It’s against this background that I am saying that plan, even though this council gave me seven days, it was not going to be justifiable for me to submit a plan that has not been workshopped and processed in different departments.

“This same plan will include all issues that have been raised by honourable Shashapa. However, it can’t be correct that we are sitting here discussing the issue of a plan when our community needs water and electricity now. Everybody else, especially councillor Shashapa, is part of this collective which knows exactly which interventions are happening on the ground,” Melato pointed out.

Weighing in, the MMC of electricity and infrastructure Ditaba Nhlapo said: “In addressing the issue of power supply, we have identified three supervisors, and they must be available to do their work daily even after hours. Their directors are supposed to monitor them so that they are always available to service the community. We have decided that the LLF must sit to

Discuss the issue of the three shifts because the three-shift system will be the solution for this municipality. The three shifts deal with an unnecessary issue of overtimes and maintaining our substations because of the overloads. Most of our substations are unable to carry the full load of the people of this community. We also suggest that all our electricians should rotate when it comes to servicing the substations because some of our people treat the substations as if they belong to them.”

On the issue of water supply MMC Nhlapo mentioned that during his presentation MAPWater CEO Willie Lefora stated that MAPWater does not have maps so they do not know where their pumps and valves are, hence the community must brace themselves for persistent service delivery challenges.