Tzaneen Muni owns up to electrical mess

In the controversial meeting between municipality leaders and community representatives last Thursday, the GTM owned up to the mess and committed to concrete and transparent solutions. Despite the media being denied entrance to the meeting, and the resulting outrage by local reporters, a journalist from the Letaba Herald was able to attend as a legitimate farmer in Letsitele.

The heated exchange started with the electricity crisis and its solution nicely laid out by Acting Electrical chief, Sam Lelope, in a tag team with Municipal manager, Selomo Monakedi.

Transformers and vegetation overgrowth, they explained, account for 60% of the problem. But both are being taken care of and the community can look forward to seeing improvement by the end of the month. As the councillor put it, ‘any problem within our GTM affects us all equally… and blaming people, at this stage, won’t assist us’.

Needless to say, the community representatives were outraged.

Why has the municipality sat back and watched the gradual collapse of 18 substations? Why were there no equipment and stock reserves? What are our electricity fees being used for if not electricity? Why are there only 6 electricians? What about all the financial loss of businesses and the entire economic system. What about all the community members facing joblessness and even death due to unsafe electricity management? Why are we hearing the same excuses and promises we’ve been hearing for over 5 years now? This is merely a sample of the questions and charges the municipal leaders faced in the community’s onslaught.

But they accepted the beating. They took the questions seriously. ‘We are the first to acknowledge that in the past we did not give sufficient attention to the business of electricity, in terms of refurbishment and infrastructure. What is happening now is the result of the neglect that has been happening for some time’, Monakedi acknowledged.

The Councillor also stated they are not blaming their predecessors; ‘we are going to own it. As a new council. And move forward’.  They agreed to a concrete timeline and detailed program reports with monitored feedback and set deadlines, and further guaranteed that all accounts with Eskom have been settled.

A follow-up meeting was agreed to and arranged for February 28 to examine progress.

Mayor Maripe Mangena concluded the meeting eloquently with a speech of encouragement, wherein he vowed to live up to his distinguished mayoral oaths.

All eyes are now on the municipality.