The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the City of Ekurhuleni brought a motion to council, which sought to compel the City of Ekurhuleni to undertake an audit on all municipal owned electricity cables across the City.
This follows the collapse of municipal electrical infrastructure across the city which is now in a total state of disrepair and on the brink of total collapse.
Unfortunately, the uncaring ANC/EFF coalition did not adopt our motion. Choosing to ignore the needs of the affected communities.
The DA motion requested the City to report back to the Council on its findings within 60 days of the adoption of this motion, as well as present a replacement and costing plan for municipal power cables that are over 20 years old.
As it stands currently, the electrical infrastructure servicing Ekurhuleni is being pushed far beyond its limitations and will not be able to continue in this manner. The current infrastructure has a suggested lifespan of 30 years under ideal operating conditions (i.e., no loadshedding or power spikes).
However, many of the city’s infrastructure now operating well over the 30 year lifespan and as a result we are experiencing these outages.
We can no longer turn a blind eye to collapsing and neglected infrastructure. The City has a constitutional obligation that has to be upheld.