Tshwane's Boshielo dismisses DA's claims of increased power outages as electioneering tactics
Image: Oupa Mokoena / Independent Media
Frans Boshielo, Tshwane's Member of the Mayoral Committee for Utility Services, has dismissed the DA's claims that the city is experiencing more power outages than during load shedding as nothing more than electioneering tactics.
This follows DA finance spokesperson Jacqui Uys' statement that her party met with Tshwane officials amid widespread and ongoing power outages across the city.
She said: 'Ineptitude and poor workmanship have caused continuous power outages across the City of Tshwane, with the city now seeing more power outages than during load shedding.'
Uys said the coalition government's decision to prohibit officials from working on emergency power outages after hours has exacerbated the situation.
She was referring to the new overtime policy, which restricts after-hours work and aims to cut excessive overtime payments while supposedly maintaining critical services.
The city has previously denied that the policy, which took effect on April 1, would harm service delivery or lead to prolonged power outages due to limited staff availability outside regular hours.
Uys said: 'While the administration cites cost control as the reason, a report presented to the city's finance committee revealed that R130 million in electricity revenue was lost in April alone, primarily due to power outages.'
She cited an example of planned maintenance over the weekend, which was scheduled for four hours and affected most of eastern Pretoria.
She claimed that the project was a failure, had to be rescheduled, and still left residents without power for up to 24 hours due to poor workmanship and problematic overtime rules.
'The DA supports the responsible management of overtime, and that work that needs to get done in office hours is done in office hours. It cannot be business as usual in case of emergencies where entire communities are left in the dark at a cost to both residents and the city,' Uys said.
Reacting to the claims, Boshielo said: 'That statement by the DA is electioneering, they know for a fact that the City of Tshwane has published scheduled maintenance that needed to be done for the electrical network.'
According to him, outages are not comparable to load shedding, and the issue stems from the outages needed to connect the Njala/N4 power lines, which affected the eastern part, as the network had to be switched off upstream to allow energisation.
'The fact of the matter is that this current administration communicated through official portals which the DA councillors are part of and instead of preparing the affected ward, they want to score cheap political points,' he said.
He explained that before the current administration took office, the substations had been plagued by vandalism, theft, and inadequate maintenance budget allocation.
In contrast, he said, the current administration has increased the maintenance budget, enabling scheduled maintenance, unlike under the previous DA administration led by former mayor Cilliers Brink.
'The withdrawal of static security personnel by the DA administration exposed the city's infrastructure to vandalism and theft. Illegal connections of electricity are also contributing to electrical network overload and tripping, but the current outages, as I have said, do not surpass load shedding, as the DA alleged,' Boshielo said.
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