A planner at heart, he says he is hands-on. “I want to be out there with the guys working. I want to see first-hand what is wrong and be involved in the solutions. At a time when the country is reeling from load shedding, he is keeping calm. We must work with what we have and do the best with what we have,” he told the Herald.
His CV reads like someone who is qualified for the challenge, taking over from the previous director, Sam Lebepe, whose contract was not renewed. Last year and at the beginning of this year, the agricultural and tourist communities were lambasted with power outages leading to outrage against GTM’s electricity department.
“I have already had a meeting with the Haenertsburg Ratepayers Association and I believe that we will be able to give a better service to the residents and businesses of Haenertsburg. With tourism being a major contributor to the local economy, it is essential that they receive the necessary support,” Mthetwa says.
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He is a registered engineering technologist and has many years of experience in working as a design engineer and in project management at Eskom and at private consulting firms. He has worked for Eskom in the Tzaneen area as project manager since 2012 and is familiar with the challenges facing the GTM.
“In my experience the situation at GTM is much better than at other municipalities. Most of the challenges, and we know exactly what they are, can be fixed.” He is currently working on a maintenance plan that will, according to him, help during the coming rain season. “Up until now we have mostly worked reactively, when a fault is reported, we react to it. I want to be pro-active, if we can plan ahead, we can get it right,” he says.
In the two months since he has been in the position, he is proud that they have been able to fix most of the street lights in town.
“We will concentrate on line maintenance in the coming weeks, especially the Eiland and Haenertsburg lines to clear vegetation.”
He says they use the load shedding times when the power is down to do maintenance on the lines. Customer satifaction often comes up when he talks about his plans. “We have to communicate with our customers, keep them in the loop on how repairs on faults are progressing.” With this in mind, he hopes that the GTM call centre may soon be automated – at the moment they still use a manual system which causes delays in reporting faults.
Thus they currently rely on community WhatsApp groups which are also very effective, he says. “Theft remains a major problem, two weeks ago four transformers were stolen, three on the Haenertsburg line and one on the Eiland line.” Criminals are also active in town, he says.
“They are cutting street light cables and cutting open meter boxes.
“That is why we will be implementing meter boxes that will hopefully be crime proof. But the moment we have a solution, criminals access the same technology.” He also worries about the safety of municipal officials and is working in conjunction with neighbourhood patrols.
Despite capacity issues such as transport, he says funding should not be a problem. “We must make sure wehave spare parts in storage to speed up our service.” Mthetwa also touches on the morale of employees, a challenge which he believes must be managed. “It is a matter of attitude. Every one must take responsibility, even if it is not your job. If you see something is wrong, report it,” he concludes.
