Damage is not our problem, says Makhado Municipality

Date: 09 August 2024 By: Andries van Zyl

The Makhado Municipality has effectively washed its hands of all responsibility regarding the large-scale plundering and vandalism of electrical infrastructure installed as part of the 700-erven township development south of Pretorius Street in Louis Trichardt. Little, if any, electrical infrastructure escaped unscathed, with cost estimates of the damage sure to run into millions of rands.

Residents became aware of the damage last week when local resident Jan van Rooyen happened to stumble upon the devastation while attending to a veld fire. The scale of the damage over the entire project area left him dumbfounded. The newspaper revisited the scene of the devastation with him on Wednesday, and true to his comment made last week, the pictures he took did not do the scale of devastation justice.

As far as the eye could see, in every street, all electrical cabling had been stripped and stolen. Transformer and electrical meter boxes were either completely stripped of all copper or damaged beyond repair. “This [plundering] did not take place overnight. It is impossible! On the scale it took place, it must have taken weeks, if not months,” remarked Van Rooyen. The question he, as well as many others, was asking himself was how this could take place without anybody noticing it and sounding the alarm.

This is exactly what the newspaper wanted to know from the Makhado Municipality, which initiated and approved the project at the beginning of 2021. When asked when they had become aware of the devastation, municipal spokesperson Mr Louis Bobodi stated that this had only happened on 14 July this year. “We kindly advise that the alleged theft was committed on a site that was handed over to the contractor, and he is responsible for safeguarding existing infrastructure on site and the relocation of existing services,” said Bobodi.

Bobodi was asked what preventative action the municipality had taken to prevent further plundering after becoming aware of the situation. “We have instructed the service provider to intensify security on site and ensure that our infrastructure is safeguarded,” said Bobodi. Sure enough, when we visited the area on Wednesday, security staff spotted on site confirmed that they were deployed to the area last week. It is not clear if any security personnel were deployed in the area prior to that. If they were, the devastation might have been prevented.

Although the security of the area remains the responsibility of the service provider (contractor) on site, the Makhado Municipality remains the owner of the infrastructure. Bobodi confirmed, therefore,  that as the owner, the municipality, together with the service provider, had opened a criminal case at the Makhado SAPS on 14 July with case number 150/07/2024.

Regarding the estimated cost of the damage suffered, Bobodi stated that the municipality had not suffered any loss. “The municipality has not incurred any loss since the responsible service provider will repair all the damages before handing over the site back to the municipality, and currently, the service provider is still busy with the construction of the roads, as well as the relocation of existing services (water, electrical, and sewer infrastructure),” Bobodi said.

Although not able to supply a cost estimate of the damage caused, Bobodi was asked how much the municipality had spent on the project since its start in 2021 (excluding roads and stormwater development). The figure given by Bobodi was R25 million.

So, how does the almost total destruction of all new electrical infrastructure impact the project? “The electrical project was completed on the 14^th of June 2023, construction of roads is still in progress, and any damage that came because of the relocation of existing services will be repaired before the site is handed back to the municipality,” said Bobodi.

Although not applicable in this case, Bobodi did confirm that the municipality has insurance to safeguard them against acts of theft, vandalism, and plundering.

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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