Durban- CLARE Estate residents had to
endure 12 consecutive hours of
“load shedding” from 10am to
10pm on Monday, when stage 6
load shedding was implemented
This became a total of 14 hours when load shedding was correctly implemented in the area at midnight until 2am yesterday. In Wyebank, some households had to endure six consecutive hours of “load shedding”, from 4pm to 10pm on Monday.
A Clare Estate resident, 59, complained that eThekwini Municipality never stuck to the schedule when it came to load shedding, but instead “just do their own thing”.
She said Monday’s outage was a huge blow to her as she worked from home as a consultant, and was unable to do any work without her computers functioning. “Every two hours the electricity would come back on for less than a minute, for 12 hours straight,” she said.
The outage was a huge blow to residents. Her back-up alarm systems, powered by batteries, were not working because the batteries had been unable to recharge due to the electricity supply being cut for so many hours.
“We bought takeaways, and although I have a gas stove and a lights supply, it does not mean I’m not frustrated or do not see what’s happening to my neighbours.
“The municipality needs to give us a reason why we had such a
long outage; we need accountability.”
Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said: “100% power has been restored to Clare Estate. A team has been sent to investigate the power outage in Wyebank, as no complaints were lodged. The electricity unit has received high volumes of reported faults as a result of the inclement weather conditions and load
shedding.”
Mayisela encouraged residents who were without electricity for an extended period of time to lodge a formal complaint to the electricity unit, which would allow the unit to track faults and respond quickly.
Complaints could be lodged via the municipality’s WhatsApp number, 073 148 3477, or residents could call the electricity contact centre at 080 13 13 111.
Meanwhile, Ugu Municipality spokesperson France Zama said the municipality’s operations had been adversely affected by load shedding, which also affected many of its water-treatment plants.
“Our water-treatment plants require power to be able to pump water,” Zama said.
He said one of the municipality’s major treatment plants generally produced about 23 megalitres of water daily but during load shedding production dropped by more than four megalitres, which placed a huge strain on their water network. As a result, there was more demand than supply.
“At the municipality, we are also forced to implement water rationing, whereby supply to some areas is suspended so water can be apportioned to other areas, in order to try to preserve water in our network,” he said.
The municipality appealed to residents to use water sparingly.