Farmers in Letsitele are burning more than 2 473 litres of diesel every two days to keep their operations running as the Greater Tzaneen Municipality continues to struggle to supply power to the country’s breadbasket.
“We have spent in excess of R60 000 on diesel for our generators over the past two days because we have had no power from our municipality,” said a frustrated Mariaan de Nysschen of JJ de Nysschen farms on Thursday.
“All of us are struggling to produce viable yields as we battle to water our orchards. To top it all off we have loadshedding in between the power outages.”
On Wednesday afternoon the GTM announced that they would be switching off the main 33Kv Eiland feeder in order to install a transformer to replace a damaged unit.
The Letsitele transformer reportedly tripped due to high pressure and upon inspection the GTM’s electrical team discovered an oil leak on the unit’s tap changer. According to the electrical department a specialist contractor from Gauteng was consulted and the GTM was advised against switching the unit back on as it was in danger of causing an explosion.
In the meantime the GTM moved to what they termed to be “Plan B” which was to bring back their old 2MVA units. They explained to the residents that this process would take the team approximately five hours after which the power to the area would be restored, but not to all customers and the farmers would gain preference.
This was to be a temporary solution as they awaited the contractor from Gauteng who would be delivering a new transformer to be installed.
Because of the amount of load lost in Letsitele over the past few days the GTM’s new electrical chief, Freedom Mthetwa, instructed his department to suspend loadshedding in the Letsitele area until the situation was resolved.
At the time of going to print, the power was still not restored to Letsitele, after the transformers were installed on Wednesday and the area was energized for a sum total of two hours between midnight and 02:00 on Thursday morning.
Under the former director of electrical, Sam Lelope, the crisis in Letsitele rapidly escalated from bad to worse with his reluctance to show any compassion, coupled with his inability to articulate the problems to his customers finally breaking the camel’s back.
The situation was so bad that in June of 2021 the management of Agri Letaba petitioned a parliamentary committee to look into the matter. Lelope, former mayor Maripe Mangena and former Municipal Manager, Thapelo Matlala all appeared before this committee and the GTM were warned to improve communications with their customers and find a speedy solution to the unacceptable situation.
By all accounts it appears as though Mthetwa, the new director who replaced Lelope, at the very least understands the importance of open and clear communications. Whether he will finally be the one to rescue the situation, however, appears to be seen.
Mthetwa took over the reigns – rather picked the reigns up off the floor where it was dropped by his predecessor – in August this year.
As a registered engineering technologist who has worked as a design engineer at Eskom and private consulting firms, he is all too familiar with the situation facing Tzaneen. Mthetwa worked as a project manager for Eskom in Tzaneen for the past decade and appears to be up for the tremendous task at hand.
