Premier fights to keep lights on at BCM’S big businesses
Municipality and IDZ told to find ways to lessen burden of load-shedding on city’s major employers
Faced with the spectre of an economic downturn caused by Eskom’s constant blackouts, Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane has instructed Buffalo City Metro to find alternative ways to keep the power on and prevent production from stopping at big corporates in the city, including Mercedes-benz SA (MBSA).
BCM announced this week that its curtailment customers, who were previously exempted from load-shedding, would now also face power cuts.
The city’s curtailment customers include the industrial, automotive, manufacturing and hi-tech sectors.
A meeting between the city and curtailment customers was held on Monday and the decision to stop the exemption was communicated.
This has led to production losses and delays.
On Tuesday, Mabuyane, fearing potential job losses, said he needed a quick fix to issues affecting MBSA and other big businesses.
MBSA, with 3,000 workers, is one of the biggest employers in the Buffalo City Metro region, which is the Eastern Cape’s second economic capital.
Mabuyane said he understood Eskom problems were a nationwide problem, which was a threat to the economy.
“We know the Eskom problem is bigger than the [competence of] municipalities.
“It is threatening production at Mercedes-benz. There was an arrangement between BCM and MBSA on how to deal with issues of load-shedding in the East London Industrial Development Zone (IDZ),” Mabuyane said.
“Now, with stages 5 and 6 of blackouts, institutions [like the IDZ] can no longer be precluded or excluded [from load-shedding].
“But I can tell you, immediately Mercedes-benz stops functioning properly, issues of inefficacy would come in, followed by retrenchment, and we don’t want that situation,” Mabuyane said.
He instructed officials in BCM and East London IDZ to find alternative ways on the issue of blackouts affecting big businesses, he added.
“We are working with the BCM city manager and the CEO [of the IDZ] to attend to the issue. I know this is beyond them but I need a quick answer on this.
“We are also making an appeal to everyone to use electricity sparingly to reduce the load,” Mabuyane said.
BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya said they were monitoring the curtailment process on an hourly and daily basis.
MBSA’S general manager for corporate affairs, Thato Mntambo, said: “In a bid to solve the general shortage, protect existing supply and ensure sustainable production, Mercedes-benz, in collaboration with BCM, has agreed to contain its electricity usage during supply constraint periods when the grid is under pressure to help the municipality regulate and continue with its supply.”
When asked if the facility had backup power, such as generators, Mntambo said: “MBSA sources energy from Eskom and depends on the national grid.
“To support this general energy challenge, Mercedes-benz and its suppliers have instituted a range of energy conservation initiatives, even when there is no load-shedding.
“The need for renewable energy is an environmental, commercial and sustainability imperative.
“There is an urgent need to solve this to ensure we meet our daily production targets,” Mntambo said.
Ngwenya said the city was implementing load-shedding across the board from “an excessive stage 5 and upwards if there is no improvement in the national outlook”.
“Of course, it is done in consultation with big industry as we have a solid working relationship ... We have worked together with all stakeholders to find working solutions.”
He said it was important that the business community was supported.
“We cannot afford to lose their confidence.
“We are in the process of sourcing independent power producers and have consulted widely with other cities, the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) and National Treasury towards finding alternative energy solutions for our city.”
BCM’S acting city manager Nceba Ncunyana said concerns had been raised from the IDZ that load-shedding was affecting production at Mercedes-benz.
“In order for Mercedes-benz to effectively drive production they must get the components from the IDZ.
“Those components must arrive on time because if they don’t, production is delayed.
“We are praying for stage 4, where [businesses like MBSA] are exempted. For stage 6 it is difficult to exempt them,” Ncunyana said.
The Dispatch reported on Wednesday that BCM mayor Xola Pakati said the city was awaiting a response from national authorities on its application for alternative energy.
“We have submitted our applications to both the National Treasury and the department of minerals & energy around our applications for independent power producers.
“We are awaiting their response. “We resolved a long time ago that we must also have an energy mix,” Pakati said.
The power utility said national stage 5 load-shedding was likely to be reviewed on Thursday.
East London IDZ spokesperson Sibusiso Ralarala acknowledged the negative effect of stages 5 and 6 loadshedding on production.
“It is a challenge for us when there is excessive load-shedding.”
“Production processes depend on machines and technologies that consume electricity … level 5 or 6 power cuts means that daily targets cannot be met,” said Ralarala.