Tshwane Council Meeting 31 July - Energy Efficiency

RESPONSE TO ITEM 8, PP. 21-23, ANNEXURE A, SECOND REPORT ON RESOLUTIONS OF THE MAYORAL COMMITTEE, PRESENTED AT THE COUNCIL MEETING OF 31 JULY 2008

PROF DC BAKER - CLR WARD 46

Mr Speaker, this is an important report dealing as it does with sustainable energy efficiency, renewable energy and demand side management. The pity is that it is long overdue.
Some months ago our esteemed colleague Councillor Vickey Bosch challenged us to think outside the box with regards to renewable energy. Unfortunately our options are somewhat limited. The nuclear option is still a long way off, wind energy in the City is a non-starter essentially because of its very mild weather. Councillor Clive Napier and I have already made a motion to the effect that solar water heating should be used in all new housing developments, and that is about the sum total of renewable energy. Oh yes, hydropower – that is truly a long way off – in the Congo to be exact. While we have the technology, as adequately illustrated by the Cahora Bassa scheme, the political difficulties in implementing such a scheme are legion.
We are left thus with refurbishing our power stations in the City, or implementing demand side management as a matter of urgency. Mr Speaker, Sir, there was a time when ESKOM would gladly have made significant financial contributions for us to do the latter. Now it too pleads poverty along with the rest of our hard pressed fellow South Africans.
But let’s look at demand side management. During the recent load or rather people shedding exercise, and I did say people, we were all massively inconvenienced - No Freudian slip – that is exactly what happens – you shed people. People are unable to get to work, or get back home. Because many are hourly paid, they are unable to put food on the table. Those in taxis and motor vehicles spent many fruitless hours sitting in the City’s instant parking lots as the streets became. In short the impact on productivity is massive.
Some time back IST, a company based in our fair City, did a comprehensive study of demand side management (31 May 2006). It found that every 100 000 hot water geysers consume some 63 Megawatts of energy on average. It is not unreasonable to expect that our City has in the vicinity of some 400 000 of these geysers with a consumption of around 250 Megawatts. During the recent rolling blackouts our City tried to shed 200 Megawatts at a time.
Mr Speaker, the way demand side management would work in this case is that power to geysers would be remotely turned off during peak demand periods, and turned on again during the early morning hours when the demand was low. In short, Sir, if we had efficient demand side management, we would not have to go into the unacceptable practice of people, sorry, load shedding.
Right now plainloads full of the appropriate equipment to implement such a scheme should be winging their way to the Republic. Many teams of budding BEE electrical contractors should be in training. But what is happening? We hear too little. Granted there will be an initial financial cost, which will be offset in long terms savings. Oh, but I forget, then there would less money for our senior officials and members of the ANC to live it up at the City’s expense.
Mr Speaker, the time to implement demand side management was yesterday. Tomorrow is already too late.

Tshwane Council Meeting 31 July - Social Development

REPORT ON THE POVERTY REDUCTION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

SPEECH BY COUNCILLOR RITA AUCAMP

I’d like to quote from the City of Tshwane Integrated Poverty Reduction and Community Development strategy:

Strategic Objective 1: To provide quality basic services and develop infrastructure. (Emphasis on the quality basic services).

Strategic Objective 3: To fight poverty, build clean, healthy, safe and sustainable communities.;

And also sir, very ironic, the slogan for this poverty reduction strategy:

Fighting poverty and developing communities: working together towards making Tshwane a city that cares for all. Very Ironic is it not?

Approximately 1.2 billion people struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day world wide = R7,50 per day. Recent estimates of people living in poverty indicate that 18-20 million South Africans live in poverty, slightly more than 50 % of our population. Whilst the proportion of people living in poverty is decreasing, the number of poor people is increasing.

Tshwane has a population of approximately 2,5 million people representing 22,5 % of the Gauteng population. The population of Tshwane grew at an average annual rate of 2.1 %. The inequality and contrast between the rich and poor is rising at an alarming rate with the poor concentrated in the northern region.

Along with the rest of South Africa, Tshwane suffers a crisis of unemployment. Recent statistics by STATS SA showed that Tshwane poverty levels are:

People with no income=172 000, People with an income of R1 to R4,800 =
41 600

These are the 11.7% of the Tshwane population living in poverty. People that our city have a responsibility towards. People like those who were residents of the Kruger- and Shubartpark flats. People whom our mayor made from poor to homeless in less than 24 hours. The same mayor who said and I quote from her keynote address at the poverty alleviation conference: “The city aims to give the poor hope and much more effective ways working them out of poverty.” Ironic that that same mayor only a few months later, after turning a blind eye to the circumstances under which the residents of Kruger and Shubartpark lived, evicted the poor to whom we were suppose to give hope.

Sir,

The Poverty Alleviation Programme in the City can be summarised as follows:

· Free basic services for the poor;
· Registration of the indigent
· Provision of housing to benefit the poor (what a joke)
· Grants-in-Aid to NGO’s and vulnerable groups
· Bursaries for poor children
· Creation of jobs
· Registration of unemployed youth graduates
· And also evicting residents who placed their lot in the city’s hands

This is not enough. Databases and registrations are not feeding a hungry toddler. It is not keeping a grandmother or street child warm in the cold winter nights.
Speaker, we as the city can not promise the residents help through shelter, food and blankets and on the other hand evict them into the cold without any
refuge.

Our mayor is concerned according to her keynote address at this conference about the disparities between the rich and the poor. How did you sleep last week Madam Mayor? Very cosy and warm, I presume, in your Waterkloof home while the residents of Krugerpark and Shubartpark were traumatised by fellow residents‘ untimely death and being evicted into the cold!

The city can host as many poverty workshops and conferences as we wish, but we should stick to our promises and implement workable, feasible strategies to alleviate these huge problems.

To conclude, the Democratic Alliance wishes to express there utmost disgust with the way in which the Mayor and officials handled the Kruger- and Shubartpark issues.

Maybe the ANC and especially the Mayor and her MMC’s should workshop more on how to deliver effective services and uphold their promises made to residents of our city.

RITA AUCAMP
(083)629 0315