‘Coal’s slow death in Mpumalanga’ 21 January 2026

Steve Tshwete Local Municipality in Middelburg used to be one of South Africa’s top municipalities, boasting an average 95% rates collection. Now it is bleeding revenue as Mpumalanga’s coal sector contracts and is struggling to pay its own service providers within the mandated 30 days. The municipality’s chief financial officer, Puselletso Milato, said as retrenchments accelerate and coal-related activity slows, the effects are showing up in falling rates payments and growing arrears. In November 2025 residents owed the municipality more than R604-million – a fall of more than R200-million in just one year. Applications for indigent support have also increased, with 889 applicants qualifying between September 2024 and December 2025, Milato said…Five coal-fired power plants and 15 coal mines are expected to close by 2030, and another four plants and 23 mines by 2040. This will impact the livelihoods of 2.5-million people, most of them in Mpumalanga, according to 2024 research by the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.

The job losses unfolding across the coal belt are occurring alongside major commitments by the government and international partners to support South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET). However, workers, civic groups and municipal officials told #PowerTracker that support has yet to materialise at local level. The JET Investment Plan has allocated nearly R2.7-billion for reskilling programmes nationwide, including R750-million earmarked for youth-focused initiatives in Mpumalanga and R5.6-billion for supporting coal workers. The plan also includes R1.6-billion for pilot skills-development centres in Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape. Despite these commitments, retrenched workers and affected communities say they have seen little direct benefit.

…The layoffs across the coal sector over the past two years have resulted in the loss of almost 1,000 members at the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), according to Tsheka Hlakudi, NUM regional secretary in Mpumalanga. “These are just the ones who were our members — other unions might have different numbers,” he said…Hlakudi warned that the increasing casualisation of work – when retrenched employees are re-hired or appointed as temporary contract workers – is deepening poverty among former mine workers and contractors. “An employee who was earning R50,000 a month could afford to pay for a house, a car and their children’s school fees. Now their earnings have been changed from R50,000 to R10,000,” he said. Hlakudi pointed to Eskom’s Komati Power Station, which was decommissioned in October 2022, as an example of what he described as failed promises around retraining and reskilling. According to Eskom, approximately 360 contractors lost their jobs at Komati, while 185 workers remained on the books. The facility now employs 162 people, down from a peak workforce of almost 400.

This article was originally published by Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism. The investigation was supported by the Ford Foundation.