AGRI Letaba Petition; with Minister

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Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

06 July 2021
Chairperson: Ms F Muthambi (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Video: Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, 06 July 2021 

The Portfolio Committee convened in a virtual meeting with representatives from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), and the Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM) to consider the petition from AGRI Letaba, calling on the National Assembly to investigate severe electricity outages, power dips, low voltage and poor to no maintenance since 2016.

AGRI Letaba said that the electricity issues had been experienced since 2015, but had escalated in 2016 to a point where consumers had experienced equipment and income losses. Among issues that had been experienced since 2016 were serious concerns regarding health and safety for the consumers and animals, as well as the electricians and technicians on duty, and vegetation control under power lines, especially where there were no access routes along the power lines. Security was also a major challenge, especially with regard to the maintenance of cables and transformers. Consumers and ratepayers were not receiving the required quality of electricity service, and a large number of them had had to depend on self-generation to ensure the continuity of their businesses.

Other concerns were that there were very few, or no, contingency plans in place in the event that a catastrophic network failure occurred, which was realistic prospect according to professional sources that had been consulted by AGRI Letaba. In the event of such a failure, the second largest citrus-producing export region in South Africa, as well as other exporting agricultural areas, would be devastated with no short-term recovery, which would result in the economy of the GTM suffering immensely.

The GTM responded that in terms of its strategic risk register, with particular reference to electricity in general, there were mitigating measures that needed to be undertaken by the municipality, and also acknowledged the failure to keep up with technological advances, infrastructure theft and theft of electricity equipment, as well as compliance with the requirements of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA). They said that after the municipality’s involvement with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), a project steering committee had been established at the onset of the projects' planning phase, with members of the committee including the GTM, NERSA, the DBSA, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and ESKOM. As part of addressing the electricity problems confronting the municipality, the GTM had been able to secure funding amounting to R100 million, a loan amounting to R90 million, as well as an Infrastructure Investment Programme for South Africa (IIPSA) grant amounting to R10 million.

The Committee agreed that the main issue between the petitioners and the GTM had been poor communication, and noted that people had every right after exhausting all local avenues to escalate matters to Parliament. It stated that that once the forums met and discussed all the matters of mutual interest, communication was going to be strengthened in the municipality because all the issues related to electricity supply, power outages and maintenance could be resolved. The Committee would follow up on the matter on a quarterly basis and deliberate on the recommendations that would also be shared with the municipality, with a view to them also reporting back to the community. The municipality was required to send a roster of Electricity Forum meetings to the Portfolio Committee.

Meeting report

Chairperson's opening remarks

The Chairperson welcomed the delegation from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), alongside the petitioners represented by AGRI Letaba as well as representatives from the Greater Tzaneen Municipality, to the meeting. She also acknowledged the presence of Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and noted her request to leave the meeting early.

She said that the meeting was for the Portfolio Committee to consider and report back on the petition by Agri Letaba, which was an organisation that represents farming communities around the Greater Tzaneen Municipality in Limpopo. The petition sought for the National Assembly to investigate the severe electricity shortages, power dips, low voltage and poor to no maintenance since 2016, which were allegedly a result of failure by the Tzaneen local municipality.

This was not the first time that the Committee had had to deal with the Greater Tzaneen Municipality on matters relating to petitions, as on 24 June 2020, the Committee had dealt with a different matter and had urged all the parties to engage with one another and exhaust all other local avenues before escalating matters to the National Assembly. The petition appeared to demonstrate convincingly that all local avenues relating to the matter had been exhausted and that coming to Parliament was a measure of last resort. It seemed that the communication issues with the municipality remained a problem, despite the Committee’s previous plea to the municipality.

The Chairperson said she would allow the petitioners to speak for themselves on the matter and allow the municipality and other relevant stakeholders to respond, and then the Committee would deliberate on the way forward. She then allowed a Member of Parliament who works closely with the Greater Tzaneen Municipality, to lead the discussion.

Ms D van der Walt (DA) was glad that the petition had finally been tabled to the Portfolio Committee after a long time of waiting, and that the matter could be discussed as it affected the economy and the work of the people. Letsitele agriculture was really playing its role in the economy in creating jobs and such a large stakeholder should not be neglected.

Petition by AGRI Letaba

Mr Pieter Vorster, Chairperson: Agri Letaba, provided a background on the timeline of the challenges faced by the farmers and community of Tzaneen. As organised agriculture and concerned citizens, Agri Letaba had taken the initiative to do something after they realised that the electricity supply and maintenance at the Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM) was not on a good path. Their approach from the beginning had been to assist and not to criticise. Electricity issues had existed since before 2015, but they had escalated in 2016 to a point where consumers had experienced equipment and income losses. They had a meeting with the GTM and warned them that the system would collapse, as the network was not being maintained, and had also contacted the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) in 2016 regarding the dilapidated network, health and safety issues, and the GTM’s obligations to have a distribution licence. An energy forum was established with various stakeholders, including GTM, NERSA, AGRI Letaba, the business chamber and community representatives. Various organisations had been contacted to assist with the electricity crisis, and there had been numerous correspondence and meetings held to offer assistance to the GTM since 2016.

Mr Thabo Mavundza, Engineering Manager: AGRI Letaba, said that they would like to thank the GTM for doing their work and revamping the lines in certain sections in the municipality since the petition was sent, as there had been some camera systems put in place and fencing installed in certain sub-stations. There were still some sections of the network that had been experiencing challenges and did not have the required capacity to power various communities and businesses within the municipality. There were still some serious concerns regarding health and safety for consumers and animals, as well as electricians and technicians on duty. There were still issues regarding vegetation control under power lines, especially where there were no access routes along the power lines. Security remained one of the major issues associated with the maintenance of cables and transformers.

Mr Mavundza said that consumers and ratepayers were not receiving the required quality of electricity service, as a large number of them had had to depend on self-generation to ensure continuity of their businesses, which came at a high cost. Business interruptions due to power failures remained a critical issue, as businesses were losing millions of rands. There were very little or no contingency plans in place in the event that a catastrophic network failure occurred, which was a realistic prospect according to professional sources that were consulted by AGRI Letaba. In the event of such a failure, the second largest citrus-producing export region in South Africa, as well as other exporting agricultural areas, would be devastated with no short-term recovery, which would result in the economy of the GTM suffering immensely.
Greater Tzaneen Municipality

Greater Tzaneen Municipality's response

Mr Maripe Mangena, Executive Mayor: Greater Tzaneen Municipality, said that the GTM had created systems to allow members of the community to play a role in their economy, as they were exercising participatory democracy. They had established structured stakeholders, and AGRI Letaba was one of their key stakeholders, as they were part of the Greater Tzaneen Municipality Energy Forum and the GTM Local Economic Development Agency.

He said that upon the arrival of the Municipal Manager, when he first came to Tzaneen, he had held a special meeting with leaders of AGRI Letaba because he understood the strategic role they played in the economy of Tzaneen. The meeting was to ensure that they created open communication not only with the Director, but also to create open access to the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC). Communication had been taking place between the municipality and AGRI Letaba through the channels that were proposed by the Portfolio Committee, and added that if the COVID-19 outbreak had not happened, the state of electricity supply in the GTM would not have been the way it was right now.

One of the notable inputs that AGRI Letaba had made, when their chairperson visited the office of the mayor for a discussion, had been around issues of transport, where the chairperson had mentioned vehicles struggling to access roads and breaking down in the municipality. It was through that influence that the municipality had ended up purchasing nine new vehicles to make sure that there was access to funds for proper support.

He said that the GTM did cooperate in a lot of areas and as a mayor, he had did not expected the petition to reach the top level of the National Assembly, as he believed that the municipality’s relationship with AGRI Letaba, to the best of his knowledge, was not broken. The Municipal Manager would show in the presentation that the municipality was investing millions of rands on issues of maintenance because undeniably, they had ignored these issues in the past.

Mr Thapelo Matlala, Municipal Manager: Greater Tzaneen Municipality, presented on the electrical infrastructure of the GTM. The presentation detailed the background of the electricity issue, the stakeholders involved in the municipality, the project steering committee, progress on the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) capital projects and revenue enhancement programme, as well as the HAMSA renewable energy report and vegetation control.

As background, he said that GTM was a licensed service provider for electricity within the proclaimed towns and townships of Tzaneen, Letsitele, Haenertsburg, Lenyenye and Nkowankowa, and was one of the largest non-Eskom distributors of electricity in the country. The municipality presently distributed power to an area of approximately 3 500 km² in extent, which served more than 14 000 customers. The distribution area did not correspond with the municipality’s jurisdiction area, with the two main areas of difference being:
the townships of Nkowankowa, Lenyenye and southernmost areas, which were serviced by Eskom, but fall within the Tzaneen Municipal area, and
Letsitele, Eiland and Gravelotte, which form part of the Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality, but were supplied by the Greater Tzaneen Municipality.

NERSA had conducted a compliance audit on the GTM’s electrical networks on 27 to 29 February 2012 in order to determine their level of compliance with the electricity distributor’s licence conditions. During the audit, NERSA had found that the latest master plan that was done in 2006 was outdated and had to be reviewed to assist the municipality in forecasting demand. NERSA had recommended that GTM allocate sufficient funding for a reviewed master plan in their 2013/14 budget year. NERSA had also observed that there was a lack of recapitalisation of the network electrical plant, such as the replacement of the old transformers at the existing Letsitele sub-station, the Tzaneen main sub-station, and the replacement of overhead line networks. Another compliance audit was conducted by NERSA in 2017, and as a result, an electricity forum was established with stakeholders that included AGRI Letaba, the business community, farm owners, NERSA and the GTM.

Mr Matlala said that in terms of the municipality’s strategic risk register -- with particular reference to electricity in general -- they acknowledged the following risks:

Municipal infrastructure;

  • Electrical losses (both technical and non-technical) and mitigating measures that needed to be undertaken by the municipality;
  • Failure to keep up with technological advances;
  • Infrastructure theft and theft of electrical equipment;
  • Compliance with NERSA requirements.

He also added that after the municipality’s involvement with the DBSA, a project steering committee was established at the onset of the projects planning phase, with members of the committee including the GTM, NERSA, the DBSA, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and ESKOM. As part of addressing the electricity problems confronting the municipality, the GTM had been able to secure funding amounting to R100 million, a loan amounting to R90 million, as well as an Infrastructure Investment Programme for South Africa (IIPSA) grant amounting to R10 million.

Mr Matlala then detailed how the DBSA loan of R90 million had been spent in the municipality to deal with the electricity infrastructure problems.

COGTA's response

Mr Basikopo Makamu, Member of the Executive Council (MEC): COGTA, Limpopo, said that after the Department had received the petition, they had held an engagement with their team to verify some of the work that the municipality was trying to do to make sure that they responded to the challenges as outlined by the petitioners. The Department had also verified the details of each farm that was going to require a bigger supply of electricity and those which showed on several occasions the intention to grow their farms, which in turn would create jobs around the area of Tzaneen. The Department had committed to supporting the municipality with refurbishing sub-stations so that they could minimise the challenges of electricity.

The Department did not do this without considering that the country itself was facing challenges with electricity supply, such as load shedding. It also appreciated the leadership of the municipality in terms of the R100 million that they were investing through the grant and the loan, and took note of the amounts that they were using from their own revenue to refurbish the electrical supply in the area. The Department was engaging with the municipality and supporting them, even though the municipal infrastructure grant (MIG) did not necessarily allow them to be supporting the electrical projects.

Agri Letaba's response

Mr Vorster said that the Electricity Forum had been initiated and established by AGRI Letaba, and not by the GTM, and added that the communication between AGRI Letaba and the GTM had been disappointing. AGRI Letaba had sent 80 letters via email to GTM since 2016, with 63 of those letters not receiving any feedback or reply, so the frustration regarding the communication was very high. He With regard to correspondence and quick communication, there were six WhatsApp groups of which some of the GTM's electricity members were part, and in June only, there were about 756 power outage reports.

Mr Mavundza requested that the GTM team share the compliance report, as it was hard for AGRI Letaba to understand how the municipality had passed the NERSA compliance audit with the conditions being the way they currently were at the municipality. 

Mr Kobus van Wyk, of AGRI Letaba, acknowledged the presentation from the Municipal Manager and said that it was nice to see that the projects were unfolding. He added that it was unfortunate that they were unaware of the projects being undertaken by the municipality, because the last communication they had with the GTM was a virtual conference on 20 May 2020, and thereafter there had been no communication from them.

Some of the photos that had showed up in the presentation about the network of new connections were going to benefit areas within Tzaneen, but the Letsitele farming community were more on the outer edges of Tzaneen town, which was a completely different part of the network, and unfortunately that network had not been maintained. The Letsitele farming area had experienced daily electricity outages and had equipped themselves with generating capacity. The citrus farming operation employed roughly 800 people during their season, and they had to go to extreme lengths and spent a lot of money on generating capacity in terms of diesel that was consumed. All that money was taken out of the local economy from job creation, remunerating and appointing new people, which was a huge cost for the farming area.

Regarding the clearing of vegetation lines, Letsitele as a farming community had offered their assistance, saying that they had all the infrastructure required, including the manpower to assist the GTM in clearing the lines. They felt that there was not sufficient energy being exerted and work being done on the ground to ensure better and reliable electricity supply. He added that additional issues that came into play included the billing of the electricity accounts, and were reporting their meter readings monthly to the GTM just so they could get them to be accurate. The GTM was losing out on a lot of revenue by not effectively billing all their users, so probably if they fixed that they could address half of the issues that it was experiencing with the maintenance of a very big electricity network.

Mr Van Wyk said that it was unfair for the GTM to be to looking after such a big network, and acknowledged the work that was currently being done. He added that the support staff on the ground were always helpful and always went out of their way to assist when there was a power outage, and they worked throughout the night. It was unfortunate that they had to be here on this evening, but a lot of people and businesses were suffering.

Ms Van der Walt said that it was not nice for municipalities to be reported to Parliament, but unfortunately they were in a "People's Parliament," and the petitioners had done all that they could to get assistance with their challenges, as they had indicated that the last communication was more than a year ago. She wanted to know whether AGRI Letaba and NERSA had been invited to the meeting held on 4 June with ESKOM for them to table their issues as well. She found it very strange that every time the GTM was brought to the table, the mayor hinted that matters should be kept within the municipality. “We cannot treat our biggest stakeholders like this, as there are jobs at stake, the economy at stake and this town and surrounding areas are dependent on these specific stakeholders, especially for jobs”, she added.

Discussion

Mr C Brink (DA) said it seemed that the problem was the persistent and prolonged interruptions of electricity that affected this stakeholder, which was the agriculture industry made up of various role players. When a petitioner reached Parliament, one could not say that it was disingenuous because they should have followed whatever procedure, especially if the petitioner showed that they had tried 63 times to communicate with the municipality and had not received a response. The mayor should not be surprised that the petition had reached the Portfolio Committee, and should maybe start opening his office so that the petitions did not reach it. He had noted the pictures and the list of capital projects that were provided by the Municipal Manager, indicating how the problem was being addressed, but it was not exactly clear whether those capital projects were in fact related to the problem of continuous power interruptions to the community. The Municipal Manager could have shown any number of pictures and figures that might not at all relate to the area or the specific problem. There had been a request by the petitioners for an audit to be conducted on the state of the reticulation network and the electricity infrastructure by an outside party so that there could be an objective assessment and so that budgetary integrated development plan (IDP) decisions could be informed by the actual situation.

Mr Brink said that the Municipal Manager had mentioned a NERSA audit from 2012 making certain recommendations, but had not told the Committee whether those recommendations were ever implemented. Given that the NERSA audit was in 2012, referring to a master plan of 2006, he asked for an answer from the municipality to the petitioners' request for an audit to be done on the reticulation network as it affected the Letaba community. He also asked for clarity from the municipality on whether they had the internal skills to fulfill the NERSA licence conditions. He wanted to know if the municipality had electrical engineers and sufficient skills to do what needed to be done. He asked for clarity from the petitioners about the assistance that they had offered to the municipality, and from the municipality as to why the offer of assistance was not accepted.

Mr G Mpumza (ANC) wanted to know if the projects implemented by the municipality were addressing the NERSA recommendations of 2012 and 2017, and whether they were addressing the challenges that were raised by the petition. It appeared that the main challenge now was the lack of constant communication between the GTM and the AGRI Letaba community, as people who were part of the Energy Forum. He also did not understand why 63 letters had not been responded to by the GTM, as AGRI Letaba was part of the Energy Forum and were ready to assist. Going forward, there should be an improvement in communication between AGRI Letaba and the GTM.

In the presentation, it had been noted that the municipality was owed R24 million by ESKOM and at the same time, the municipality had an agreement with ESKOM while it was a licensed provider. This agreement was a challenge in other municipalities, as municipalities tended to use ESKOM power without paying them. He wanted to know whether ESKOM was paying the municipality on a regular basis, since they had an agreement. He wanted to know how often the municipality was appreciating the strategic function of assets in building the economy and contributing towards rendering services to its communities, because the presentation reflected an aging electricity infrastructure. He hoped that this intervention was addressing that by refurbishing the aging infrastructure, so that it would continue to sustain services and the economy of the area.  

Mr K Ceza (EFF) asked how the pictures in the presentation by the municipality addressed the maintenance of infrastructure, and wanted to know whether the municipality had satisfied themselves that they had responded to the issues raised by the petitioners. It was evident that the main issue was communication between the municipality and its people, and he wanted to know how the municipality aimed to resolve this, because for the petition to have reached the National Assembly showed clearly that it needed to be resolved.

Mr I Groenewald (FF+) wanted to know if the municipality had a policy in place for communication, and if they did, if they applied this policy, as it was evident that communication was a challenge.. He also wanted to know when the policy would be in place, in the case that the municipality does not have such a policy.

Ms H Mkhaliphi (EFF) agreed with the Members of the Portfolio Committee that the main issue was that there was no communication from the municipality. She suggested that the municipality should attend to every person who was within their jurisdiction, even if they thought that they were not important.

Ms D Direko (ANC) said that as spheres of government, they also needed to remind each other of their roles and responsibilities. The municipality was responsible for providing services to the people and in doing so, they also had to ensure that they had a good and healthy working relationship with the stakeholders. Communication was very important in each and every institution, so it was really disappointing to hear that there was a lot of communication that had been sent to the municipality, but unfortunately the municipality had failed to respond. She wanted to know if the provincial COGTA was aware of this situation, or if they had also found out about the issue when it came to Parliament.

Ms Direko asked COGTA in Limpopo to provide details as to when were they anticipating building the new sub-station in the municipality, as the MEC had committed to assisting the municipality with a sub-station. She wanted to know whether there were funds available from the Department for the sub-station, or if they still needed to assess if it had funds available. This was because government departments tended to make commitments and when the commitments did not have timeframes, it was impossible to hold anyone accountable.

The Chairperson wanted to know how often the Electricity Forum met in the municipality, and what agenda items they discussed. She said that the Project Steering Committee had a responsibility to report frequently to the stakeholders, and wanted to know how often the committee met, because it should be dealing with matters of interest to the different stakeholders. Regarding the DBSA-funded capital projects, she wanted to know what was going to be done about the existing transformer position, which was not reachable by a crane truck.

She also wanted to know why the municipality was having so many issues with power outages if they had a good working relationship with ESKOM. She asked which 12 areas had been recommended by the municipality for active partnering with ESKOM, and the criteria that they had used to choose them. What mechanisms and measures were in place to ensure that the active partnering could become a reality? She asked the municipality to clarify how it happened that the municipality owed ESKOM R83 million, where the municipality had signed an agreement with ESKOM to continue supplying the municipality with electricity and at the same time, the municipality was owed an amount of R24 million by ESKOM.

Mr Van Wyk said it seemed as if the Committee had noted the communication issues, but there were other underlying technical issues in the municipality that needed to be addressed. In the audit from 2006, NERSA had commented that the recapitalisation budget of R1.6 billion was not sufficient, so the R100 million DBSA loan or grant and the R62 million self-invested by the municipality over the past four years in maintenance, was not sufficient. The presentation that was given by the GTM, although it tended to alleviate some of the issues, was definitely not "the magic wand" that was going to resolve all the issues. A lot of the money that had been spent and reported on spoke to reticulation within the same town area, and did not address the reticulation and upgrading of the infrastructure required in the rural areas. The rural areas were the major contributors to the revenue streams, because they were the farming communities, business communities and those were the people that used high volumes of energy.

GTM's response

Mr Matlala said that the presentation responded to the challenges as per the compliance audit conducted by NERSA in 2017. When he had referred to the 2006 and 2012 audits, he was providing a historic background to the matters. The Tzaneen main sub-station and the replacement of overhead lines was a direct response to the issues that had been raised in the NERSA audit report. It was true that the municipality had aging infrastructure, but part of the refurbishment of the lines was going to address this.
The municipality’s maintenance team had replaced the electricity boxes that had caught fire.

He said that the municipality’s electricity department had qualified electricians, as well as an electrical engineer and highly skilled people. Above that, the municipality had people who had experience of working with the network for many years. The Project Steering Committee reported to the Energy Forum, which was supposed to meet quarterly. There was constant communication between the municipality and AGRI Letaba, as he had met with AGRI Letaba many times and had been to their offices. He added that the issue was not communication, but rather what needed to be resolved was the strategic approach to electricity in Greater Tzaneen between AGRI Letaba and the municipality.

The issue of the 63 communication letters from AGRI Letaba was misunderstood, because it was not really 63 letters. There was extensive communication in the municipality that was happening through WhatsApp, as the members of the community communicated by using this platform. Their maintenance team was working around the clock on matters that need to be attended to, as testified by AGRI Letaba. In most cases, AGRI Letaba did its own independent research and then expected the municipality to accept their findings without having interrogated them on its own.

Mr Moswatse Lelope, Operations and Maintenance Manager: GTM, said that the issues of the technical audits were raised when NERSA came to do the compliance audit in the municipality. The issues had been raised by AGRI Letaba to NERSA on several occasions, and NERSA had said that they did not have the resources to do a technical audit. However, the technical audit, together with the compliance audit, belonged to NERSA as the regulator. AGRI Letaba had then said that they wanted a technical audit, to which NERSA had responded that they must pay for it, but the report would still belong to NERSA, and that issue was abandoned.

He said NERSA had facilitated the establishment of the Electricity Forum, and not AGRI Letaba, as Mr Vorster had suggested. The Electricity Forum needed to be established by the licensee, which was the supplier in terms of the licence conditions. In terms of the compliance audit, there were issues of the capacity of the network to supply, but those issues had been resolved and the municipality was anticipating that it would have capacity issues at the Tzaneen main sub-station, which was now nearing completion. In most of the areas where AGRI Letaba was operating, there were no capacity issues, as the municipality’s networks could supply any application for a connection.

The comment that the R100 million was spent only in the urban areas was not an accurate statement, because all the overhead lines in the presentation were in rural areas and all the other components that had been mentioned were in rural areas. The town network was stable, and the municipality was not spending a lot of money on it -- only on the Tzaneen main sub-station and the SS1 sub-station that was mentioned. The money was being spent in collaboration with the DBSA, based on all the issues raised by NERSA, which was also monitoring the Project Steering Committee meetings.

Mr Lelope said active partnering with ESKOM had been raised by the municipality in one of their meetings with the utility, as they had collaborated with them for a long time. ESKOM had always assisted the municipality in dealing with electricity breakdowns and all other issues that were affecting their customers, but now they had come to a point where they were saying if they were to collaborate with the municipality further, it meant they had to account for all the expenditure that they incurred when assisting the municipality. ESKOM had then come up with the active partnering initiative, which they said was a national initiative to assist municipalities to continue being able to pay them because of the debt levels in municipalities. The municipality was hoping that at the end of the month, they would be going to council with an item where they would indicate the areas that they were going to prioritise for the active partnering. The municipality was waiting for a council resolution to come up with a timeline for the agreement.

He said that the municipality did accede to requests by farmers if they wanted to assist, and there were several instances where farmers had assisted the municipality. The only time the municipality did not accept assistance was when the farmers went to the municipality’s financial systems offering help, as it may affect their compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA).

Follow-up discussion

Mr Vorster said that 80 emails had been sent, with 63 of them receiving no reply. A number of them had requested times for Electricity Forum meetings. He had not been wrong in stating that AGRI Letaba had initiated the establishment of the Electricity Forum, and asked whether the forum would have been established without AGRI Letaba’s initiative or actions.
Regarding the farmers offering assistance to the municipality and getting rejected, he said that one example was the clearance of the vegetation, and added that all the farmers would have assisted the municipality on their own properties, but in some instances the answer had been no because there were sub-contractors appointed to do the job.

Mr Mangena said that he was not happy about the atmosphere that prevailed between the municipality and AGRI Letaba, because they were not in any competition and had been working together and had the potential to correct the miscommunication. The mayor said that he sometimes met with Ms Van der Walt, and they had discussions about the challenges that the GTM faced in a cordial manner. If there were still certain challenges around communication, the municipality would go further to make sure that they improved and addressed all those issues. Communication had to go two ways -- if Agri Letaba communicated with the municipality and the municipality communicated back, that would mean there was an improvement.

He said that the pictures that were shown as part of the presentation were indeed responding to the challenges being raised in the petition, as the municipality had known of the problems for a while. AGRI Letaba was also part of the IDP Forum, and the municipality had made sure that it involved AGRI Letaba whenever it was dealing with IDP budget processes. He did not like the fact that the issues had to go all the way to the National Assembly, when they could have been addressed within the Greater Tzaneen municipality.

Regarding vegetation maintenance, he said that in one of the meetings they had discussed the issue of clearance of vegetation, and the municipality had agreed that this was a perfect example of a public-private partnership.

Mr Mangena made a commitment to the Committee that the municipality and other stakeholders, including AGRI Letaba, would have a meeting to discuss outstanding challenges so that they could agree on the way forward and where they were failing, then they would call on the government for assistance.

MEC Makamu said that the only time the provincial COGTA knew about the challenges in the municipality and had started to interact was when they got the referral from the petition, and started to engage the municipality. The petitioners had never interacted with the Department, nor the office of MEC for that matter, to try to resolve the impasse between the GTM and themselves.

He said the provincial COGTA did not have a budget for rebuilding sub-stations in Tzaneen, but the Department would continue supporting the projects of the municipality through its MIG monitoring.

Mr Brink said that he did not like to hear the mayor complaining about having to appear before Parliament. He added that if one received a petition to appear before Parliament, that person needed to go to Parliament and address the issue, and if the mayor had an open-door policy, then the meeting would not have been necessary.  He wanted to know the timeframe in which the municipality aimed to address the prolific power outages affecting these petitioners. He also wanted to know when last the Electricity Forum had met, and when it would meet next.

Mr Mangena responded that he was not necessarily complaining about coming before Parliament, but rather saying that it would have been ideal that when the municipality encountered some problems, they should try to resolve them internally first before approaching Parliament. They were more than willing to return to the GTM and continue to vigorously and intensively engage with each other to resolve issues with AGRI Letaba and other stakeholders. He hoped that this would resolve the communication issues in the municipality.

Mr Matlala said that in the slide where they had mentioned the existing transformer position that was not reachable by crane truck, they were referring to an old problem, as the new transformer was reachable. In the past, there were more than ten structures that had been installed by hand, with no access to machinery, and equipment and material had been carried by hand for more than a kilometer. These were the problems that caused power outages, but with the new investments by the municipality, the problem was now solved.

Regarding the timelines, he said that the municipality’s presentation was mainly focusing on the petition in terms of dealing with outages, power dips, low voltage, and poor maintenance. AGRI Letaba had raised an important issue -- that the R100 million that the municipality was spending on infrastructure was a drop in the ocean, as the report showed that the municipality needed to be spending more than a billion rand towards electricity infrastructure. That was why they had linked the issue of electricity infrastructure and the problems around it with the revenue enhancement strategy so that they would collect more revenue, and then they would be able to capitalise on the infrastructure. The municipality had not yet arrived at the point where it would be able to capitalise on electricity infrastructure, and therefore could not speak on the timeframes.

MEC Makamu appreciated that the petitioners had raised their issues in a peaceful manner instead of using their right to protest, which normally led to vandalisation of property and infrastructure. He also commended the petitioners for also appreciating the little work that had been done by the municipality, even though they wanted more to be done. It was true that the R100 million that had been set aside to refurbish electrical sub-stations and power lines would not be enough, as it would also require the municipality to review their revenue collection strategies to help raise more money for the projects. The Department would also look at ways in which it could assist the municipality by ensuring that the revenue strategies of the municipality could help it to raise funds.

Despite there being different understandings of the communication by both the petitioners and the municipality, he thought that through public participation with the forums that were available, they should be able to enhance and close the gap that had resulted in miscommunication between the two. He added that there may not be enough resources currently to resolve all the challenges as they had been presented, but communicating with the forums and making sure that the forums got involved could also help bring about stability in the municipality.

The MEC asked that the provincial department of COGTA be involved in the Forum meetings so that they could also be aware of the challenges, and so that in future meetings with the Portfolio Committee, the Department could come prepared and informed. He asked that invitations be sent to the Department so that they could be part of their meetings and could support the farmers, the community and the municipality.

The Chairperson asked the Municipal Manger to respond to Mr Brink’s question about when the Electricity Forum last met, and when it was going to meet again.

Mr Matlala said that the Electricity Forum was supposed to meet quarterly, but there had been some disruptions because of COVID-19 and the lockdown. There was constant communication between the municipality and the different stakeholders and members of AGRI Letaba. There was intense communication on the WhatsApp platform, but the Energy Forum would be resuscitated to start meeting regularly.

The Chairperson said it had been over a year since the COVID-19 lockdown had started in the country and there were other ways to hold meetings, including using virtual platforms, so the municipality could not blame COVID-19 for not holding its meetings. She understood the mayor’s frustration with the communication issue, because if the forums had been meeting, there would not be a need for the petition to come before the National Assembly. People did not go to Parliament because they were being spiteful but because they were experiencing challenges, and Parliament was their last resort. She added that after the meeting, the municipality must send the Committee a roster where all the relevant stakeholders were going to be involved, and it must facilitate the links to meetings either on Zoom or Microsoft so that it could communicate clearly with stakeholders and petitioners.

She said that the stakeholders and petitioners were within their rights to do as they had done, as it was provided for in the constitution of the country, and assured them that Parliament would do a follow up with the municipality.

Ms Van der Walt thanked the Portfolio Committee for allowing her and the petitioners to raise their concerns, and said that they trusted that the Committee would do follow-ups and make sure that none of the stakeholders were running away from one another, as they all lived in the town. “

She said that from the municipality’s commitment that there would be more engagement, there had to be a commitment after the meeting to get together and start talking and fix the communication problem, but that was just one part of it. The fact of the matter was that there must be a commitment by the municipality to seek assistance at other levels, whether with ESKOM, NERSA, the provincial government and its departments, or through Parliament. There had to be a commitment that they would listen to each other's challenges and that they could find common solutions that would benefit the people and the economy, as they could not meet and talk about their challenges but there was always a reason why it would not work.

The Chairperson said that this was not the first time that the Committee was dealing with issues from the Greater Tzaneen Municipality in relation to petition matters. This was the consequence of the structures that had been created that were not working. People had every right, after exhausting all local avenues, to escalate the matters to Parliament. She was of the view that once the forums met and discussed all these matters of mutual interest, communication was going to be strengthened in the municipality because all the issues that related to electricity supply, power outages and the issues around maintenance could be resolved.

She said that the Committee was going to follow up on the matter on a quarterly basis, and asked SALGA to look at this matter so that they could also engage in the next meeting and submit a report on their assessment of the electricity issues at the GTM.

The Chairperson said that the Committee was going to deliberate on the recommendations that would also be shared with the municipality, with a view to also reporting back to the community. The municipality had to send a roster of the Electricity Forum to the Portfolio Committee. WhatsApp was there as a means of communications, but when people met formally, there must be minutes of the proceedings of the meetings and that could not be done in a WhatsApp group. There must be formal meetings so that people could make presentations of plans.

She thanked the petitioners for submitting their grievances to Parliament, and assured them that the Committee would do a follow up on the matters raised.

The meeting was adjourned.


 

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