ALBERTON – It signals the beginning of a problem that I feel quite powerless in finding any resolution to. Eskom announced that South Africans must be prepared for daily load shedding from next week until at least the end of April. Although Eskom committed to do its best to prevent load shedding, the power utility requires at least R3 billion to buy diesel, because power stations just can’t cope.
If Eskom does not get the money from Government, daily load shedding is a certainty. The main reason why this frustrates me so much is that Eskom CEO Tshediso Matona admitted that Eskom’s policy to “Keep the lights on” meant that power station maintenance was neglected. The main problem is that residents do not blame Eskom for power problems and maintenance issues, they blame Ekurhuleni.
Ekurhuleni is the single biggest municipal consumer of Eskom power. This means we have the single biggest pool of municipal electricity users in the City of Ekurhuleni. Alrode and Wadeville is the biggest industrial corridor in the Southern Hemisphere and the single biggest user area for electricity in Ekurhuleni.
Residents of Alberton may not have realised this, but we are big when it gets to electricity consumption, and Eskom’s load shedding will affect our community more than others. I cannot even imagine how we can bridge this gap, and this leaves me feeling quite powerless – pardon the pun. Electricity is a basic service for residents, but it is also an essential service for business. The economic outlook of rolling blackouts and load shedding will have a tremendous impact on us, especially employment.
I want to assure residents that Ekurhuleni has plans to manage the impact of load shedding. Please visit the Ekurhuleni and Eskom websites to obtain load shedding schedules and share this information with others. We need to collectively prepare ourselves for a few difficult months ahead. The one beacon of light is that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has made a personal intervention to ensure government is on top of the problem and Eskom’s maintenance gets back on track.
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