BETHAL – “We are without power every day,” said a Bethal resident.
“My children have to do assignments online because of the lockdown, but this is impossible with so many power outages.”
This is just one of many Bethal residents who claim that, since the lockdown began, they have daily at least four electricity outages.
“During this lockdown period, we are supposed to go to town as little as possible, but if the electricity is off so often, the meat and other things in our fridges will not last.
“It cannot go on like this. The president said there will be no load shedding, so why then is our power off in Bethal every day?”
One of the residents contacted Govan Mbeki Municipality’s call centre and asked when the electricity situation will improve. She was told to buy a generator.
Govan Mbeki Municipality sent out a notice in February about a decision that was taken by Eskom regarding Govan Mbeki Municipality notified maximum demand in all points of supply from Eskom.
According to this notice, notified maximum demand (NMD) means that the contracted maximum demand, notified in writing by the customer (in this case Govan Mbeki Municipality) and accepted by Eskom, was exceeded.
Bethal, eMzinoni, Kinross, Evander and eMbalenhle are using more electricity than what Govan Mbeki Municipality bought from Eskom, thus Bethal and eMzinoni are currently experiencing load shedding several times daily.
According to the notice, this contravenes the electricity supply agreement between the municipality and Eskom Holdings SOC.
As a result, Eskom informed Govan Mbeki Municipality in December last year that they will limit the municipality’s notified maximum demand for electricity on all points of supply to be as per the electricity supply agreement between the municipality and Eskom.
Mr SF Mndebele, municipal manager, said in the notice: “Unfortunately, this decision has been implemented.”
Thus this decision means that the municipality will continue to implement partial rotational load shedding in Bethal, eMzinoni, Kinross and Evander where necessary, depending on the load demand.
Govan Mbeki Municipality has in the meantime applied at Eskom to upgrade the notified maximum demand for the respective towns.
The municipality urged customers to sue electricity sparingly during this time as the municipality cannot cope with the high demand of electricity at this stage.
Ms Mariaan Chamberlain, DA councillor, also informed residents about this arrangement of Govan Mbeki Municipality and tried to explain why residents have load shedding up to four times daily.
“At one stage eMbalenhle had load shedding a few times daily and now the demand in Bethal is too high, thus they have load shedding now,” said Ms Chamberlain.
“I made a suggestion to the team to rotate the areas and to not switch off the same area every day in Bethal.
“I can only raise this problem when we have a meeting again and that will only be after the lockdown.”
