三河マルシェ【MARCHE】三河エリアのコミュニティポータルサイト

A NEW solar water heater manufacturing area in Atlantis is around the brink of closure as well as its 85 employees have not been paid for ninety days, due to the fall of government’s National Sun Water Heater programme.

As a minimum six other solar water heater manufacturers countrywide are also facing job cuts.

The national programme started in 2010 as an Eskom discount scheme to replace present electrified geysers with solar water heaters so that you can reduce the demand for power on the national grid. The primary target was one mil solar water heaters through 2014. Only 400, 000 models were installed under your rebate programme and in 2015 the Department of Energy (DOE) took this over and changed your focus to providing energy water heaters to state-subsidised as well as unelectrified homes, setting a new cumulative target of YOU. 75 million units by simply 2019, and five mil by 2030.

The establishment and growth of the Isolar factory in Atlantis, and a minimum of six other solar drinking water heater manufacturers nationwide, was nurtured by state programme, which also stipulated that 70% in the solar water heater components should be locally sourced.

But when presenting its annual performance want to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee in Energy in April, the DOE said the 2018-19 pay for the National Solar Normal water Heater programme was R0. It turned out R394m in the past financial year. Yet, the actual department reported, only 87, 000 solar water heaters were manufactured. Furthermore, the installation phase in the programme had not taken place at all. The solar water heaters are sitting in various storage facilities surrounding the country.

Isolar general supervisor Andre Fourie said the actual National Solar Water Heaters programme was “in principle, beautiful”.

Fourie said it had allowed Isolar to cultivate from 15 employees in 2016, to 85.

But he said points had started imploding in November not too long ago when, after the manufacturing area had delivered its very last purchase order, no further orders came.

Later in December the company received a letter from the DOE asking about it's capacity for repair along with replacement of solar normal water heaters.

Fourie said he acquired believed the department seemed to be instituting the repair plus replacement programme while “sorting released the political shenanigans” (former President Jacob Zuma were ousted as president in the ANC in December, changed by Cyril Ramaphosa, indicating a shift in power and the possibility of a cabinet reshuffle).

He said the maintenance and replacement programme had been included in the company’s tender award, so no new procurement had been necessary. Briefing notes were being sent, and the repair and replacement programme was because of begin on 6 Feb. This was then moved to 22 or 23 February, then to 17 March. Then all connecting stopped. “There was absolutely nothing. ”

In early April Isolar was informed the original tender cutoff date, THIRTY-ONE March, had been missed, which meant further requests for proposals related to supply, or repair along with replacement, were cancelled.

Administrative staff manning the phones at Isolar over a voluntary basis and hoping once and for all news from the DOE, said that without salaries most of their colleagues were confronting eviction from houses or perhaps rooms they rented because they were not able to repay their rents. Others had used his or her job to extricate themselves from the drug and gang way of life suffusing poverty-stricken Atlantis and were now needing to sit at home all day long and were being dragged on the underworld.
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