Some areas in the Rosslyn Industrial Hub had no power for more than five hours.
Pretoria - The Transformation Alliance has slammed the DA-led City of Tshwane for “governance incompetence” and “putting jobs at risk”.
This after the city was plunged into darkness on Monday morning due to a switch trip at the Kwaggasrand substation infeed.
Some areas in the Rosslyn Industrial Hub had no power for more than five hours.
In a statement yesterday, the newly formed party led by former ActionSA regional leader and Tshwane MMC Abel Tau, expressed concern at the alleged governance incompetence and failure in the metro that compromised service delivery and put jobs at risk.
“We are deeply concerned about the mismanagement, and the collapse of governance in the City’s affairs as it continues unabated. We call on the provincial government to exercise the powers given to it by the Constitution,” Tau said.
He accused the metro of failing to provide basic services.
“They are not paying suppliers and service providers on time, they aren’t responding to service delivery requests timeously, but they are now risking more than 200 000 job losses, with the investors and businesses operating at Rosslyn industrial hub, having to worry about electricity supply,” Tau said.
He added that section 139 of the Municipal Systems Act empowered the Provincial Government to intervene when a municipality, because of a crisis in its financial affairs, is in serious or persistent material breach of its obligations to provide basic services or to meet its financial commitments or admits that it is unable to meet its obligations or financial commitments.
“The current state of affairs in the City of Tshwane Municipality is a reflection on the incompetent DA/ActionSA coalition government.
“While ActionSA can complain about other parties elsewhere, they can’t run away from the mess that is the City of Tshwane, which they are co-governing.
“We call on the provincial government to intervene and save the much-needed jobs that might be lost, if the status quo remains in the City of Tshwane,” he said.
Efforts to reach Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink were unsuccessful.
The metro has been facing service delivery challenges recently because of an ongoing municipal strike linked to the SA Municipal Workers’ Union.
The municipal employees have been protesting for five weeks, demanding salary increases of 5.4%, however, the City says it cannot afford the hikes.
Pretoria News