After a string of power outages in Johannesburg, the contract of City Power boss MK Mohlala has not been renewed.
Fazila Patel, City Power’s company secretary, said on Tuesday: “Mr Mohlala has informed us that he wishes to pursue his own business interests. The board will advertise for applications. The board will shortly appoint a transitional executive who will understudy Mr Mohlala during the balance of his contract (it expires at the end of January).”
Mohlala’s tenure has been in the balance since he took over the utility and the city started experiencing numerous power failures – one as recently as Tuesday – often bringing business to a standstill for hours.
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The severe outages have forced several shopping centre tenants and businesses to purchase generators.
Questions have also been raised about whether the city would be able to host major conferences and even the 2010 World Cup, given the severity of the situation.
The nail in Mohlala’s coffin appears to be a damning report by the National Electricity Regulator (NER), which recently commissioned an independent audit on the utility.
The results seriously questioned whether City Power has the ability to carry out the work, saying it “lacks the necessary human resources and capacity to implement the plans in time to avoid continuous and sustained blackouts”.
Among others, the NER found that there were serious transformer leaks even at some of the major substations; there were insufficient maintenance standards for power equipment; insufficient maintenance of battery systems with no budget set aside to accelerate the plant refurbishment; inconclusive evidence that protection systems were being tested regularly; a lack of credible paper trail and records; non-adherence to work procured; insufficient upkeep of sites and substations; and its operations were having a negative impact on the environment.
The NER set up a three-year plan of action with clear targets and timeframes to monitor City Power’s progress.
Earlier this month, Mohlala expressed indignation at the report, saying City Power had co-operated with the NER, giving the consultant information on what they thought were their own shortcomings.
Mohlala blamed the ageing infrastructure on the outages, stating that no money had been spent on upgrading for years and that there had been overloading by households; cable theft; growth in developments; vandalism; and illegal connections to the network.
He said that despite this, plans were well under way to contain the outages, which were down by 37 percent while, at the same time, improvements were being done to the electrification grid.
Silas Zimu, City Power’s vice-president of operations, said much progress had been made in upgrading and providing new infrastructure.
“We have been given R675-million of capital expenditure, which will answer the challenge of refitting an ageing network with a new, world-class grid.
“Over and above this we have already spent R450-million on work,” he said, adding that the outages had been reduced because of extensive work done.
- This article was originally published on page 0 of The Star on September 28, 2005
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