“Frustrating” is the first word a local artist used to express the anti-climax that has led to the delay in her production schedule.
“Fragmented”, was pushed back due to Pacofs’ electricity being disconnected by Centlec. The local power utility confirmed that it began disconnecting electricity for defaulting customers within the Mangaung supply area on 5 February: residential customers, businesses, and even government entities like the Performing Arts Centre of the Free State’s building.
Jane Mpholo explained that she had just concluded her final dress rehearsal after three weeks of intense rehearsals and preparations when her team was suddenly left in the dark. The show was scheduled to take place from 6-8 February.
“Everyone planned their lives around “Fragmented”. I am working with people on other productions and I am working on other productions as well so it would have been nice to be done with the show, especially after the amount of work we put in to create a high-quality production and now we have to do everything from scratch,” she expressed.
Mpholo added that despite the situation being sad, the team still looks forward to bringing the audience an exciting show when the details have been confirmed. “When you perform there are a lot of things that happen before you can get to the stage of being ready, that means that we have to go back to the rehearsal process again,” she exclaimed.
Pacofs CEO, Themba Dlamini, told the publication that despite there being formal communication between the city and the institution, there has been no formal communication from the Provincial Department of Public Works as yet, even after the power was restored on Monday, 10 February.
“Pacofs is very disappointed that the Free State Provincial Department of Public Works, as the custodian of our building whom we pay monthly for electricity, has not provided an official explanation as to the reasons why the electricity was cut off in the first place,” he said.
He, however, confirmed that the power outage has negatively impacted daily operations, so much so that the institution had to activate an unplanned remote working of staff which ultimately had its own limitations and insufficiencies.
“Other upcoming shows of February 2025 are affected because we utilise inside designing and printing of marketing materials, which resulted in the stoppage of all these processes,” he said.
Dlamini further explained that the institution suffered big financial losses on the days there was no electricity in the building in addition to several other expenses. These include marketing expenses generated to market shows, the cost of backup power supply, projects on site that had to stop, and communication “Thus the organisation is incurring projects delay that comes with costs, i.e. extension of time with cost as per the form contract in place.”
Despite this, Dlamini would like to reassure disappointed audiences that the delayed productions will be staged later.
“This will soon be a thing of the past because there are ongoing engagements with our mother body (National Department of Sport, Arts and Culture) and the Free State Provincial Department of Public Works about de-linking Pacofs’ electricity from the Free State Provincial Department of Public Works. This will enable Pacofs to manage its own electricity bill without being linked to any other organisation or department,” he concluded.
Gypseenia Lion
