Mogale City back on grid after ‘crossed wires’ at Eskom leave residents in the dark

Residents of Mogale City in Gauteng can breathe a sigh of relief after an internal miscommunication at Eskom left them without power outside of load shedding schedules – in some reported cases for up to 13 hours.

Disgruntled residents of Krugersdorp and surrounding areas took to social media to vent their anger as unscheduled power outages left them confused and frustrated.

“Why am I receiving over 13 hours of load shedding every day since Thursday in Krugersdorp / MogaleCity? Why am I load shed outside of the schedules? This is getting ridiculous now, can’t work, can’t cook, can’t even eat out because the pay points can’t connect due to load shedding,” Pieter Roets tweeted to power supplier Eskom.

Johan Janse van Vuuren wrote: “Krugersdorp experienced load shedding from 8am till 12.30pm and again from 4pm till 8.30pm [on Friday]. [On Saturday] again from 8am till 12.30pm. This cannot be Stage 2. Are you lying to us about stage 2? This is more [like] stage 4.”

Several residents also contacted News24 directly, complaining that they had spent the weekend dealing with unscheduled outages.

Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha told News24 that there were indeed deviations from load shedding schedules in the area, but that these problems were now sorted out.

“There were some wires crossed – in a manner of speaking – inside Eskom. But those problems have now been resolved.”

Residents had a variety of theories about the outages, such as that they were being “punished” because the municipality had supposedly fallen behind in paying Eskom, and that “certain areas” were being given preference.

But Mantshantsha said these theories were not accurate.

“There was some internal miscommunication at Eskom. Everybody is back on the national load shedding schedule.”

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