As the Johannesburg Fresh Market floor has been without electricity since Saturday, thousands of tons of fresh produce - worth an estimated R10 million – are rotting there. There is no electricity to keep the produce cool as power cables were stolen in the early hours of Saturday morning. Cable theft has become so rampant that the market spent R32 million on a generator to ensure a consistent power supply for the market and agents’ cold rooms. Meanwhile, the market’s generator stands idle.
While plans for the generator were announced three years ago and unveiled a year after the deadline, the system quickly shut down due to an error in the design. An anonymous source claimed that it suffered from a fatal design failure: “The outlet for the generator fumes sends it straight back to the inlet for fresh air. How on earth could anyone have signed off on those plans, never mind built it, and then unveiled it? Now, a different contractor is charging millions to fix the error.”
Another market agent speculated that as the cables were stolen so quickly after being replaced, it was as if the same company that was replacing the cables stole them again, generating income from the same set of cables over and over.
[ R1= €0.05 ]
Source: farmersweekly.co.za