More than 150 employees of the non-operational Rooiwal power station in Tshwane have been reporting to work daily for more than 10 years, earning wages but without work to do.
This is according to workers who spoke to TimesLIVE during a visit by mayor Cilliers Brink on Monday.
The Tshwane metro plans to offer 40-year leases for the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations to independent operators who have ideas about how to repurpose them and funds to invest.
The workers, who asked not to be named for fear of victimisation, said they wanted to be deployed to other, functioning depots.
“We are getting paid for sitting and sleeping. For 10 years you just come to eat and sleep. At 8am we drink tea, at 12pm we eat and at 4pm we go home. That is our daily job. We play morabaraba and cards,” said one of the frustrated employees.
Another worker said he felt they had been reduced to serving as security guards at the station.
The two stations cost the city R300m a year, which includes staff and maintenance.
“We are spending the money, we are preserving the power stations, but what are we doing with them?,” Brink said.
“The simple issue is we've got to unlock private investment to do something here and if we can't, it doesn't help maintaining the infrastructure.”
Brink said the two power stations had fallen into disuse partly because of the high cost of stockpiling coal for them, a lack of planning for the future and the need for significant capital investment.
“A lot of the infrastructure stands but there is no real power being generated here and that's been the case since 2012 or 2013. We do have generation capacity here but it is not enough. We do have an inlet into the grid. And that is also the case with the Pretoria West power station,” he said.
Brink said the city will prepare an energy indaba at which it will take requests for proposals about the stations and solicit requests for information on independent clean energy generation.
“There is no such issue as a single supplier being chosen up front and we need all the potential bidders possible to see what they can contribute in power stations such as these to get us onto the road of energy independence.”
Brink said they are looking at procuring and generating at least 1,000 megawatts of electricity in the next three years.
Tshwane power station: 'We were getting paid for sitting and sleeping'
City aims to lease two defunct power stations to independent operators who have cash to invest and ideas about how to use the infrastructure
Image: Shonisani Tshikalange
More than 150 employees of the non-operational Rooiwal power station in Tshwane have been reporting to work daily for more than 10 years, earning wages but without work to do.
This is according to workers who spoke to TimesLIVE during a visit by mayor Cilliers Brink on Monday.
The Tshwane metro plans to offer 40-year leases for the Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations to independent operators who have ideas about how to repurpose them and funds to invest.
The workers, who asked not to be named for fear of victimisation, said they wanted to be deployed to other, functioning depots.
“We are getting paid for sitting and sleeping. For 10 years you just come to eat and sleep. At 8am we drink tea, at 12pm we eat and at 4pm we go home. That is our daily job. We play morabaraba and cards,” said one of the frustrated employees.
Another worker said he felt they had been reduced to serving as security guards at the station.
The two stations cost the city R300m a year, which includes staff and maintenance.
“We are spending the money, we are preserving the power stations, but what are we doing with them?,” Brink said.
“The simple issue is we've got to unlock private investment to do something here and if we can't, it doesn't help maintaining the infrastructure.”
Brink said the two power stations had fallen into disuse partly because of the high cost of stockpiling coal for them, a lack of planning for the future and the need for significant capital investment.
“A lot of the infrastructure stands but there is no real power being generated here and that's been the case since 2012 or 2013. We do have generation capacity here but it is not enough. We do have an inlet into the grid. And that is also the case with the Pretoria West power station,” he said.
Brink said the city will prepare an energy indaba at which it will take requests for proposals about the stations and solicit requests for information on independent clean energy generation.
“There is no such issue as a single supplier being chosen up front and we need all the potential bidders possible to see what they can contribute in power stations such as these to get us onto the road of energy independence.”
Brink said they are looking at procuring and generating at least 1,000 megawatts of electricity in the next three years.
TimesLIVE
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