Repeated electricity outages in Nelson Mandela Bay, caused by long-neglected infrastructure, are crippling businesses, disrupting water supply and threatening jobs, civil society leaders say. The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has been strongly criticised by members of the Coalition for Civil Society for failing to maintain its electricity infrastructure, following a five-day blackout caused by the collapse of two pylons on the Bethelsdorp-Greenbushes 132kV line. The power outages that began on 22 January caused widespread water disruptions, and although electricity was restored on Tuesday, many communities remain without water as infrastructure faults continue to be reported daily.
The municipality has largely attributed the collapse of the pylons to vandalism, but Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huysteen said the core problem lay in the city’s electricity infrastructure, which had suffered from years of inadequate maintenance. Van Huyssteen was speaking at a press briefing called by the Coalition for Civil Society, held to sign a social impact document and reaffirm the group’s commitment to collective civic responsibility. “Many have experienced blackouts with these massive power outages in various areas.
We also have ongoing outages across the city, and we’ve been tracking them over the years, and all point to the need for maintenance of electricity, water and sanitation infrastructure. The pylons primarily collapsed because of the lack of maintenance; vandalism is a secondary issue.” The chamber began tracking electricity outages in 2023. The outages during this period have negatively affected the business sector across the metro’s 11 business clusters.
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“While load shedding has materially reduced, the unreliable electricity supply remains a major challenge for small to large businesses, and is evident by the high number of unplanned power outages and power dips which take place,” she said. Van Huyssteen said that since the chamber began its tracking in 2023, there had been 185 power outages and dips, “with varying levels of disruption periods incurred”. “The cost has been significant to business and has caused production line stoppages, equipment failure, damaged products, spoilage and scrap.
Moreover, this has affected the ability of manufacturers to meet production, sales and export targets, while workers have been subjected to short-time and in some instances, retrenchment.” Van Huyssteen indicated that the outages had resulted in reputational harm to the metro and its ability to retain and attract investment and employment. “We believe that this is the most fixable metro in the country, and if a targeted electricity maintenance action plan was implemented, this could very quickly provide more reliable electricity to business and residents.”
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