The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) had an engagement last night with the Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality, Agri Letaba and the Limpopo Provincial Department of Cooperative Governance to consider a petition submitted to the National Assembly (NA) in June 2020 by Agri Letaba, an organisation representing the farming community in Tzaneen.
The petition asks the NA to investigate the severe electricity shortages, power dips, low voltage and poor maintenance of electricity infrastructure since 2016, allegedly as a result of failure on the part of the Tzaneen Local Municipality. The committee said it entertained the petition in line with the NA’s directive.
The Chairperson of the committee, Ms Faith Muthambi, said the engagement with the Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality was not the first one on matters relating to petitions. She said during the previous one on a different matter, on 24 June 2020, the committee urged all parties to communicate with one another and exhaust all local avenues before escalating matters to the national Parliament.
Ms Muthambi said, according to the petitioner’s presentation, it appears that all the local avenues relevant to the matter at hand have been exhausted, and that coming to Parliament is a measure of last resort. “It seems that the communication issue with the municipality remains a problem, despite our previous plea to the municipality,” said Ms Muthambi.
The petitioners spoke for themselves in the meeting, explaining their petition and emphasising the lack of communication with the municipality. They told the committee that although electricity and other strategic community forums have been established to aid cooperation between the municipality and its stakeholders, those structures are ineffective and useless.
The Provincial Department of Cooperative Governance, Traditional Affairs and Human Settlements told the committee that it became aware of the petition when the petition was referred to it. The municipality presented its plans to revive the electrical infrastructure in the Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality and its plans of future partnership with Eskom. Asked about the availability of the relevant electrical skills in the municipality, the municipality said they have qualified electricians and engineers.
The committee urged the municipality to cooperate with all its stakeholders and ensure that there is effective communication. The committee called for the revitalisation of the electricity forum and ensure that the forum has clear meeting schedules. “The forum must have clear objectives, it must be characterised by the principle of accountability and discipline,” emphasised Ms Muthambi. She also asked the provincial South African Local Government Association to make a report on the way forward and present to the committee in the follow-up engagement.