Eskom’s national load-shedding schedule was canceled on Friday 4 February, but due to power cable failure in various parts of town, the community was left reeling for the second consecutive weekend.
Local town councilors attempted to mediate and keep residents informed via social media groups.
To top the electricity crisis of Friday and Saturday, residents awoke on Sunday morning 6 February to an interruption in the water supply.
During all this time the local municipality never made a statement or notified residents of progress on rectifying the problems.
After residents aired their grievances on social media, an official response from the municipality was issued at 14:00 and thus informing residents that there would be an interruption in water supply until 17:00 due to reservoirs running dry.
Services did return to normal, although fears remain that it will only be a matter of time before the next blackout, unrelated to load-shedding, will leave the residents stranded.
A lack of capacity, resources and aging infrastructure appears to be the main causes of the municipal poor service delivery, based on the municipal report that was tabled on Friday 28 January during the first municipal council session of the year.
The budget of the 2021/2022 financial year is still applicable.
The proposed budget allocation for operating expenditure (which includes salaries of municipal employees) was estimated at R450 million, which was made public during April 2021.
A mere R28,8 million was, however, budgeted for maintenance for the entire year.
This allocation showed a shortfall of R89,7 million that was needed to maintain and fix current municipal services, according to the report.
The municipality currently has 448 employees, of which 334 are permanent staff, 99 are part of the expanded public works program (EPWP), as well as 15 managers and contractors, according to the report.
The budget allocation for salaries alone is R153 million for the current financial year.
Residents are up in arms about the poor state and lack of service delivery in Bela-Bela.
The report stated that municipal workers did fix potholes in Luna-, Marx-, Potgieter-, Chris Hani-, Corckery- and Van der Merwe-street during the month of December.
The shoddy work and the heavy rain the area received during this time, has however caused the potholes to re-appear and in fact, grow sizeably larger.
Water losses between October and December were attributed to faulty meters, irregular usage, faults on municipal accounts, leakage as well as reservoirs spilling over. No mention was made of the numerous burst water pipes in town.
There was a total loss of 192 314 kl usable water, according to the report. The report further stated that a total of 114 streetlights were repaired by December 2021.
The municipality is still in the process of replacing older streetlights with energy-efficient LED lights.
A total of 976 power-related complaints were reported to the municipality, where a total of 230 was cable fault-related.
The report claims that 43 substations and connection points had been serviced during December. A total of six municipal transformers were registered as damaged.
Although unspecified, the report claims that the municipality received no complaints from the public, regarding electrical units (boxes) in the municipal area that stood open. In another progress report, a municipal infrastructure grant of R27 million was allocated for the upgrading of sports facilities in Ward 6, pavement and stormwater projects in Ward 3, 4, 5, and 7, as well as the upgrading of the municipal landfill site in Ward 2.
No upgrades were scheduled for Ward 1. Furthermore, the municipality was allocated R29 million to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant, after the plant fell into disrepair and gross neglect over the past two years.
The municipality stated that the upgrade will be completed by August 2022. Additional funding was allocated to upgrade a section of the water treatment plant, to the value of R7,7 million.
The technical department stated that vandalism and theft of municipal infrastructure, unroadworthy vehicles, a lack of resources, a supply chain that is hampered by lack of funding, and work overload are factors that are restraining them from finalizing maintenance issues.
The report also states that the municipality has vacancies for qualified heavy-duty truck drivers, electricians, and other technical staff.
- The Post attempted, once again, to obtain a response from the municipal communication’s office to shine a light on the way forward, but to no avail. Until going to press no response was issued.
