By AfriForum
Following the explosion and subsequent fire at the Zwartkop Substation on Tuesday AfriForum criticised the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality for thwarting the implementation of the organisation’s plan for safeguarding substations in the Metro.
AfriForum maintains that the Metro, through its bureaucratic red tape, would rather watch as critical infrastructure in the Metro is destroyed and the city is plunged into a large-scale power crisis than implement effective community initiatives to protect the Metro’s assets – a plan which the Metro had approved.
Arno Roodt, AfriForum’s District Coordinator for Pretoria South, believes that this morning’s explosion, as well as the devastating fire that raged at the Waltloo Substation on 24 April, could have been prevented, but that the Metro does not have the political will or capacity to tackle the power crisis.
He emphasises that outdated infrastructure, poor management, ongoing cable theft and the sabotage of infrastructure can be put forward as reasons for the disruptive fires and explosions at substations and that AfriForum, especially with regard to the security of substations, has an important role to play in the interests of the Metro’s residents.
The civil rights organisation recently entered into a formal agreement with the Metro, granting AfriForum permission to safeguard the Garsfontein Substation.
The implementation of this project was supposed to have started last week.
It is intended to serve as a blueprint for the implementation of a citywide substation safety plan.
Despite an agreement that mandated AfriForum to secure the Garsfontein Substation, the project was, however, thwarted at the eleventh hour by Metro officials who denied AfriForum access to the site.
AfriForum’s initiatives for the safeguarding of substations are already being implemented with great success in several other towns in the country.
In terms of the agreement with the Tshwane Metro, the safeguarding of the Garsfontein Substation will include, among other things, the use of advanced camera installations and armed response.
In addition, it is intended to also implement modern technology (such as artificial intelligence) in the fight against cable theft and sabotage at substations in and around Pretoria.
In terms of Section 152(1)(e) of the Constitution, the Tshwane Metro, as a local government, is obliged to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in local government matters. However, according to Roodt, the Metro is still failing miserably in this regard.
“It is unacceptable that the time, money and effort that AfriForum members invest in their community is simply trampled on by bureaucrats who would rather prevent community initiatives than allow them to be implemented for the benefit of the residents.
The Metro is not only standing indifferently in the crisis; they are also actively working to prevent the solutions that the community itself wants to implement out of necessity,” explains Roodt.
“We stand ready to help, but the Metro must cooperate or get out of our way. Disasters like the one that occurred in Zwartkop this morning, which plunged large parts of Centurion and Pretoria East into darkness, are preventable, but they require action.
However, it is essential for the Metro to cultivate a culture of cooperation and not to oppose community initiatives.”