Durban - Raw sewage flowing into rivers, medicines spoiling, massive traffic gridlock, job losses - and even possible deaths.
This was the bleak picture painted by the eThekwini Municipality’s risk unit on Tuesday in response to Eskom’s plans for rolling load shedding over the next two years.
And unless the city started installing generators at “mission critical buildings” across the municipality and engaging business, there could be dire economic and health consequences, it warned.
The stark warning and possible interventions were contained in a 10-page report by the city’s Business Continuity Management (BCM) team, part of the Risk Unit, presented at an executive committee (exco) meeting on Tuesday.
In addition to installing generators, the report urged the city to look at implementing flexible hours for municipal employees to counter the impact of load shedding on their operations.
The report was presented by Justice Nepfumbada, a senior manager at the BCM, who did so with the hum of the city hall generator in the background after the CBD was hit by load shedding on Tuesday morning.
Nepfumbada said Eskom’s strategy of countrywide load shedding to ease the strain on the national grid has meant that critical city infrastructure, such as water reservoir pumps and waste treatment facilities, ground to a halt.
This interrupted the supply of water to thousands of homes.
“In the waste treatment facilities, the disruption will result in the sewage waste flowing into the surrounding rivers leading to contamination in the rivers and having a catastrophic impact on the environment,” he said.
Nepfumbada said the interruption of electricity would also impact the newly built multimillion-rand water treatment facility in KwaMashu, eroding the value of “such a significant investment”.
“The cost to repair the facilities is too high,” he said.
Under the current system, the city could not plan ahead to isolate certain critical areas as they were often given five to 10 minutes’ notice by Eskom to load shed, he said.
In addition, load shedding was having a major impact on the city’s health system.
“The majority of the eThekwini Municipality clinics do not have generators as an alternative source of power. Medical samples, vaccines and other immunisation medications that require to be kept in a cold environment might become unusable if there is an extended outage leading to increase in the storage temperature.”
Load shedding was likely to cost the municipality R15 million in vaccines wasted where there was no alternative power source for cold storage facilities, the report said.
“Critical medical instruments that require electrical power will not be usable when required, leading to the possible loss of lives and/or permanent health challenges.”
Load shedding would also lead to delays in emergency service responses to incidents because of gridlock, which would also affect the movement of medical samples. According to the report, this would mean the “risk to lives” could not be ruled out.
The report said the economic impact of the power crisis to the city included a decrease in business productivity, a dip in investor confidence, business closures, a decline in taxes and diminishing job opportunities.
Nepfumbada said the city needed to collaborate with the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry to mitigate the impact of load shedding.
“An integrated and co-ordinated approach to load shedding between organised business and the municipality is critical both to the attainment of business objectives and to the municipality towards achieving its vision,” the report said.
“The deliberations with the Durban Chamber of Commerce will inform the interventions and the focus area.”
The chamber’s outgoing chief executive, Andrew Layman, said he was unaware the city had plans of a meeting, but welcomed the city’s efforts.
“We are pleased to meet with the city to finalise resolutions and since the city is the provider of electricity to Durban, it is possible to find a way to mitigate the impact of load shedding,” he said. “I think the city’s plans to get input from business on this one are extremely wise.”
The report also recommended the city set up an ad-hoc committee on load shedding - made up of experts and city officials - to co-ordinate the implementation of the proposed interventions.
The report said the financial implications to implement the interventions would be reported to exco once the required assessments had been completed.
DA caucus leader, Zwakele Mncwango, said the city needed to become more self reliant for its electricity by looking into ways to generate its own power.
The party’s Heinz de Boer elicited the ire of the ANC when he asked if the load shedding was indeed brought about by Eskom.
He was referring to a billboard put up by the DA recently on the M4 south which blamed the ANC government for load shedding.
Deputy mayor, Nomvuso Shabalala, said the DA was misleading the public with the billboard because load shedding was a result of the ANC providing electricity to those who were not catered for by the apartheid government.
Daily News