• Mogale City Local Municipality’s Executive Mayor Councillor Tyrone Gray writes:
Good morning Ms Schoonwinkel, in response to a letter in the News with headline West Village water issue: There is little to no response from MCLM (July 1) the following …
You mention that replies shouldn’t be done ad nauseum, the issue in West Village stems from 2017 when it was highlighted that the invoices submitted by WRPD which is the company which does the electrical distribution in the area weren’t grounded by an SLA, this causes a situation whereby the municipality due to the lack of a service level agreement would cause the Mogale City to incur unauthorised or irregular expenditure as per section 32 of the MFMA, this is one of the causes of the issue relating to WRPD removing the cable to the water pump station and thereafter Mogale City installed a generator to assist with the water reticulation, because WRPD removed the power in the area we cant install the automated switch in terms of telemetry to automatically switch on the generator with a float that measures the reservoir levels hence the why the generator needs to be manually switched on and off.
Due to WRPD embarking on litigation and the matter is therefore sub judice and awaiting a decision by a competent court, this is envisioned to be heard in August.
Due to the pending case this hampers the regularise the SLA while the matter is pending court decision. Relating to the Eskom cable which was stolen, Mogale City along with WRPD worked together to assist the installation by sourcing materials, asking contractors for the 30 meters of 185mm square core 11kv along with the 6 terminals.
Further Mogale City then mobilised public safety and utilities management services to detour the R28 for the safety of Eskom and also slacken the streetlights cables for safe installation of the new cable.
More has been done under the new administration than in the four years previously, since the issue actually stems from then and the previous administration chose to ignore the matter. It is the new administration which went through lengths to build and install the generator house, so as to not have to depend on tinkering water in until the matter that you know well of can be sorted legally.
In relation to the Zama Zamas, we have petitioned to have more resources deployed for safety of the area, residents are also encouraged to report incidences as well as ensure proper vetting of tenants or rentals of secondary dwellings. There will also be a task team set up for the district to combat issues relating specifically to community staying close to active or dormant mines.
MEC for community safety has also been engaged with requesting extra PPE for patrollers, furthermore the fire department as a district competency has also been engaged to do a control burn once the fire index is the correct level for a controlled burn especially the Crow area.
