City of Joburg starts plans to prevent disruptions during load-shedding
JOHANNESBURG – The City of Joburg has begun plans with key Departments and Entities to ensure that disruptions to City services are minimised to residents as a result of rolling blackouts.
The City of Johannesburg said it would be irresponsible for them to have no comprehensive plan to respond to the current levels of load-shedding, any escalation thereof and the worst-case scenario of a national blackout.
“The City of Johannesburg, like most municipalities, receives little to no information from Eskom in respect of a medium-term outlook on rolling blackouts. It is of great concern that the Provincial Government, and bodies like Salga, remain silent on the lack of information coming to municipalities,” it was claimed in a statement released by mayor Herman Mashaba.
According to Mashaba, the City of Johannesburg has a responsibility to ensure that its essential services to its residents are interrupted minimally.
Mashaba said the problems associated with load-shedding were:
• Load-shedding induced outages to the aged electrical infrastructure;
• Damage to City Power sub-stations;
• Water reservoirs running low due to an inability to pump water to high-lying areas. Brixton Tower tends to experience challenges as a result of rolling blackouts;
• Traffic lights flashing red across the city once power is restored, repairing additional manpower from JRA. This, in turn, adds to higher traffic congestion levels.
• The City is required to redirect Metro police officers from crime-fighting duties to perform pointsmen duties as a result of load-shedding.
Mashaba said, ” The City of Johannesburg is deeply concerned of the extent to which National Government has this situation under control and, given the lack of a medium-term outlook, has no option other than to consider planning for further escalations of load-shedding stages.”
The City of Joburg said it is appealing to the National Government to communicate with local government so that planning can be achieved that will mitigate further interruptions of services.
“Metropolitan municipalities like Johannesburg, hold a constitutional mandate to deliver critical services at the coal-face of government. Our ability to fulfil this responsibility is being severely hampered by these rolling blackouts and lack of information,” concluded the statement.
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