Durban — The DA has urged the eThekwini Municipality for a meeting to discuss a way forward with the sustainability of the electrical infrastructure in the city.
This request comes off the back of recent power outages in Phoenix and other communities in Durban that lasted more than 40 hours.
DA eThekwini caucus leader Thabani Mthethwa said the purpose of this meeting was to find a long-term solution to what was clearly an ongoing electricity crisis in the city.
Mthethwa said this issue would have been avoided if the municipality listened to the DA’s warnings about the level of electrical infrastructure and due to this, residents might suffer even more due to food insecurity.
“This has caused pain and suffering for residents, who must now dispose of food they have worked hard to obtain,” said Mthethwa.
“The City should immediately consider exempting Phoenix and other communities with weakened power infrastructure from load shedding," said Mthethwa.
A Musgrave resident spoke to Daily News on condition of anonymity and said they still experienced power outages outside the usual load shedding period.
The resident said load shedding was scheduled between 8am and 10am on Friday but even afterwards, it would be on and off. The resident added that the power was fully restored at 1pm -- which was a total of five hours which included the expected load shedding.
In September 2022, the DA wrote a letter to the eThekwini Municipality after Eskom implemented stage 6 load shedding and warned that the infrastructure is unstable due to these outages.
“It is abundantly clear now that eThekwini’s electricity network systems remain unstable as the City’s attempts to implement stage 6 load shedding have instead caused unintended electricity faults -- which have resulted in communities going for hours without electricity,” said Mthethwa.
Following the April floods, the DA warned the municipality that it must seek from Eskom to be exempt from implementing load shedding until the city’s electricity grid was stable enough. “It is completely absurd that people in this city must be subjected to this situation.
“The inability to address the issue of failing electricity infrastructure is an impending crisis and will be disastrous for the city’s already struggling economy,” said Mthethwa.
Daily News