The DA-led multiparty administration in Tshwane has come under scrutiny for giving false hopes in 2017 that the municipality was on course to improve operations at its two power stations in Pretoria West and Rooiwal.
The criticisms by the Republican Conference of Tshwane’s councillor Lex Middelberg emanated from promises by the then mayor Solly Msimanga, who spoke about plans to improve power generation capacity of Pretoria West power station.
During a media briefing at which he took stock of his first year in office in 2017, Msimanga said: “Pretoria West power station is currently generating 24 megawatt electricity per month and we are going to push it up to 25MW per month. This effectively means that we pay less money to Eskom, which allows us to provide electricity to more households in Tshwane.”
Msimanga, now a DA Gauteng leader, also said Rooiwal power station “is in its final stage of upgrading and will come online in January 2018”.
Middelberg raised criticisms in a set of 21 questions recently tabled in council and directed to the incumbent mayor Cilliers Brink.
In response, Brink defended Msimanga’s position at the time, but promised to give elaborate answers in writing.
Questions about the state of Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations were raised at the time when the City had made known plans to lease both power stations to a private service provider for a duration of 40 years for the purpose of generating a minimum of 1 000MW.
Council resolved in September to subject the proposed alternative energy generation to a public participation process.
In part of the questions posed to Brink, Middelberg wanted to know whether Msimanga misled the National Press Club and the public when he made his statement on September 7, 2017, about the then current status of the operation of the Pretoria West power station.
He also wanted to find out whether the public and the media were misled by statements related to the status of the refurbishment and recommissioning of the Rooiwal power station.
Brink said Msimanga delivered remarks about Pretoria West’s power generation capacity less than two months before the facility was damaged by a catastrophic fire.
On October 26, 2017, he said, the Pretoria West power station suffered a fire, which caused major damage to the facility and to the station’s transformer cables.
“The repairs were undertaken to the facility but unfortunately the Pretoria West continued to experience technical, mechanical problems and other operational difficulties which jeopardised its functioning,” Brink said.
According to him, based on the circumstance at the time, Msimanga was substantially correct when he delivered his assessment of the power stations, its capacity and future potential.
“But I hasten to add that I was not involved in the preparation of that statement and so I can not comment from first experience,” he said.
Regarding Rooiwal, he said the power station never came online due to operational deficiencies.
“My understanding of this situation is that the failure to commission Rooiwal power station is partly due to a lack of expertise, skills and capital inside the City’s administration,” he said.
He said the City was now in a position to address such challenges, having taken firm policy decisions recently put before the municipal council.
The policy decisions included crafting the energy plan, which included leasing the power stations to independent power producers.
Pretoria News