Outages: Delayed response on electricity angers groups in Phalaborwa

This comes after the two parties handed a letter of demand to BPM and Nersa on January 25, giving them 21 days to respond to their demands. Their demands ask the two institutions to address the continuous power outages in Phalaborwa due to the aging electricity infrastructure. But it seems as though the request for a response has fallen on deaf ears. “The initial agreement was that by February 15 they would have responded, hence on February 16 we served them with an attorney’s notice that they must respond by February 29, otherwise we will take them to court,” said Rodger Ferguson of LCBP.

“The silence from the two institutions compels us that we have exhausted all avenues, and we are only left with the court. We hope they give us a satisfactory response before February 29,” Ferguson said on Tuesday at the time of print. In 2022, LCBP wrote to Nersa on the electricity challenges in Phalaborwa. After the regulator visited the area, they concluded that the municipality was in breach of its licence conditions and that a forum should work out a corrective plan. According to Ferguson, when they called for meetings, the municipality either did not pitch or would send the wrong people to attend, hence they called another meeting with the BPM and Nersa again this year.

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“We believe Nersa has failed their authority as a national regulator; had they exercised their power we might have had better power supply and infrastructure by now.” At the January 25 meeting hosted by LCBP, they demanded a new, coherent, realistic, and integrated (into the IDP, and current and future budgets) plan. They asked for timelines that will address the total rehabilitation of the network, the outsourcing to the private sector, its financing, and the operation to be included.

Hendrik Kotze of AfriForum told the Herald that as an organisation, they cannot allow the people of Phalaborwa to go without electricity and that if the two parties ignore the notice, they will gladly serve them with a summons. BPM spokesman, Jonas Mahesu told the Herald that by February 29 the municipality would have responded. He said the lack of response from BPM may be because the matter skipped the BPM management’s mind. Meanwhile, Nersa acknowledged having had a meeting with LCBP and the municipality but did not respond to their role in the matter.

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Nersa also said they believe that the municipality lacks the funding to implement the corrective action plan which was agreed to at the meeting. “It was therefore suggested that the municipality should identify issues that they can resolve with the limited resources on items that will not be too costly but that if implemented, would yield the maximum results and make a difference to the performance of the network. “It was also agreed that the forum will oversee the implementation of the corrective action plan (CAP) and that the forum consists of more members such as ward councillors to expand its capacity,” Charles Hlebela, head of communications at Nersa told the Herald.