The DA has written to the eThekwini Municipal Manager, Mr. Musa Mbhele, the Deputy City Manager for Trading Services, Mr. Sbusiso Makhanya, and the Head of electricity, Mr. Maxwell Mthembu requesting an urgent meeting following sustained electricity outages in many parts of the city as Eskom implements stage 6 loadshedding (view letter here).
We have been inundated with complaints from the residents about what appears to be unusual load-shedding hours, going on for days on end in many areas despite also load-shedding.
This has had a negative impact on residents and businesses.
It is abundantly clear now that eThekwini’s electricity network systems remains unstable as the city’s attempts to implement stage 6 loadshedding have instead caused unintended electricity faults which have resulted in communities going on for hours without electricity.
We have requested a meeting to get an understanding of the work that has been done from after the time that the floods occurred until now to resolve the issue of the unstable electricity infrastructure in the city.
Following the April floods, the DA warned the municipality that it must seek from Eskom to be exempt from implementing load-shedding until our electricity grid is 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.