20 Jan Coal’s slow death in Mpumalanga
As jobs disappear from the coal belt, Middelburg’s economy is buckling. Unpaid rates, collapsing businesses and stalled transition support are deepening the crisis. #PowerTracker investigates
Investigation: Marcia Moyana & Thabo Molelekwa Photos & videos: Ihsaan Haffejee
Former glory shattered: Residents attend a community meeting in Steve Tshwete Local Municipality, where the economic fallout of Mpumalanga’s contracting coal sector is increasingly visible. Once one of the country’s top-performing municipalities, it is now struggling with falling rates payments, growing arrears and rising indigent support applications as retrenchments increase. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
Debilitating debt: While close to 900 residents of the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality qualified for indigent support in the last year, hundreds of millions of rands are owed – by residents – to the municipality. Pictured here is an aerial view of Middelburg. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
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.
Once sustained by mining-linked jobs, electricity sales and industry rates, the municipality is now struggling to collect payments as retrenchments ripple through households and businesses. The growing financial strain on one of Mpumalanga’s most coal-dependent economic hubs offers an early warning of how coal-dependent towns across the province may be affected by South Africa’s energy transition.
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 JET Investment Plan has allocated R1.6-billion for pilot skills-development centres in several provinces, including Mpumalanga. Pictured here is Kriel power station in Mpumalanga. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
JET commitments
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.
Johannes Silas, director for development and strategic support at the municipality, warned that the cumulative impact of the downturn could hollow out the local economy. He said there is growing concern that, without effective intervention, Middelburg risks becoming a “ghost town”.
The municipality is attempting to diversify the local economy by integrating existing coal-linked activities with new industries, he added, but is struggling to ensure service delivery in the midst of municipal revenue decline.
“We fund most of our infrastructure projects in-house through payments from residents but if there is no money coming in, it becomes difficult to implement those projects,” Silas said.
Job losses: Michael Nkosi, responsible for economic development at Steve Tshwete Local Municipality, describes how mass retrenchments across Mpumalanga’s coal sector have rippled through the local economy. More than 4,000 jobs have been lost at major coal operations and their suppliers, hitting small businesses, informal traders and mining villages as unemployment among men rises to near parity with women in the once coal-reliant municipality. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
More than 4,000 jobs lost
The #PowerTracker investigation found that mass retrenchments across the sector have resulted in more than 4,000 job losses at major coal operations such as Seriti and Glencore, as well as their local suppliers.
Michael Nkosi, responsible for economic development at the municipality, said the slowdown has affected small and medium enterprises that service the mining sector, as well as informal traders operating in mining villages — including suppliers and street traders who depend on mining-related demand.
Unemployment among men in the municipality used to be lower than that among women, but now the rate is almost equal, Silas pointed out.
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.
In 2023 and 2024 Seriti Resources retrenched more than 1,137 employees across its Middelburg Mine Services and Klipspruit operations, following earlier retrenchment processes in which the company had considered laying off around 600 workers at Klipspruit alone. Glencore also reduced its workforce, announcing plans in 2023 to retrench up to 214 employees at its iMpunzi coal mine.
According to NUM, further retrenchment processes under Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act are under way at other coal operations in the province, including Tugela, Isibonelo, and another mine retrenching 167 workers.
At the time of reporting, unions and municipal officials said additional retrenchments were anticipated at Goedehoop Tugela Mine, although the company had not confirmed whether those job cuts had been finalised.
Ghost station: Eskom’s decommissioned Komati Power Station, shut down in 2022, is cited by unions as a symbol of unfulfilled retraining and reskilling promises, with job losses and deepening hardship extending beyond the plant to surrounding communities. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
Ghost power station
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.
“Komati was supposed to serve as a pilot station to show whether this transition would work or not, but the answer is that it’s not working,” Hlakudi said. “When they closed Komati, they said they were going to retrain and reskill our workers, but no one has been retrained as we speak now. It’s a ghost power station.”
He said the impact extends beyond the power station itself: “The community around that power station is suffering. The school around that power station is suffering.”
Municipal money: Despite receiving voluntary separation packages during a 2023 retrenchment process, former employees of Seriti’s Klipsruit Colliery have mounting municipal debt. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
When the bills pile up
Behind the revenue figures are households struggling to survive without coal-linked income. Mariah Nkosi* (name withheld at her request), a former control room operator at Seriti’s Klipspruit Colliery, said she lost her job in July 2023 after 15 years at the mine.
She said workers were offered voluntary separation packages during the Section 189 retrenchment process. “Our employer used a strategy that would make them look good on paper,” she said. “We were promised first preference if contract workers were rehired, but few people were re-employed.”
After using her retrenchment payout to settle her bond and other debts, Nkosi said she now owes up to R30,000 in municipal rates. “I owe the municipality because I had hoped that I would be employed by now, and I’ve unfortunately been handed over to their lawyers,” she said.
Simon Matekola, a retrenched former safety officer at Seriti’s New Largo and Pegasus mines, said his wife is now the sole breadwinner. He has taken Seriti to the Labour Court over his retrenchment.
“They don’t care about the wellbeing of employees and lack ubuntu [compassion],” Matekola said.
Waiting: The Big House informal settlement, just outside Eskom’s decommissioned Komati Power Station, where residents say promised Just Energy Transition jobs and reskilling support have yet to materialise. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
Uncertain future: A coal mining operation in Mpumalanga, where workers and surrounding communities face mounting uncertainty as the sector contracts. While renewable energy investments and job commitments are expanding on paper, those affected by coal job losses say transition support and reskilling initiatives have yet to translate into equivalent employment on the ground. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
Where is the transition support?
Investment in renewable energy projects and employment is ramping up in the province, and 188 projects are currently recorded on the #PowerTracker digital tracking tool.
Seriti Green’s Ummbila Emoyeni wind farm is averaging more than 1,200 jobs during construction, with 54% of these positions filled by people from local communities, for instance.
Another 6,971 jobs are expected to be created through the the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) bid window 7, and the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan indicates that localising 70% of components and 90% of operations and maintenance in wind and solar value chains could deliver 36,500 new direct jobs by 2030 across the country.
But those affected by the job losses in the coal belt question whether these projects will provide equivalent employment, and point out that many of the renewable energy projects require a workforce with different skills. (#PowerTracker reported on the green skills gap here in 2023.)
Municipal officials acknowledged that transition-related projects are still at an early stage. Sifiso Mochitele, a coordinator in the executive unit for Steve Tshwete Local Municipality, said that while partnerships with training colleges and sector education authorities exist, many reskilling initiatives remain “at an infancy stage” and have yet to translate into large-scale employment opportunities.
Civic groups shared similar concerns. Themba Marabe, regional chairperson for the South African National Civic Organisation, said communities frequently hear about upskilling and transition programmes, but see little evidence of them being implemented on the ground.
“Most of these programmes target young people, and communities want to know how many people have actually been trained and where they are working,” he said.
This investigation was supported by Ford Foundation
Find details of renewable energy projects in Mpumalanga and elsewhere in South Africa on our #PowerTracker tool here