Johannesburg - Johannesburg will continue to be under Eskom’s load shedding schedule in spite of calls from some members of the DA for the municipality to be exempt from load shedding.
MMC for environment and infrastructure services Jack Sekwaila said he had noted with concern the reckless statement by some DA councillors about the suspension of load shedding in the City of Joburg.
"The decision to suspend load shedding for the whole city is not one the CEO can unilaterally grant. It will be granted by Eskom after engagement with the MMC, and when that happens, it will be announced by the office of the MMC.
“Load shedding is an Eskom process implemented due to capacity constraints. The entity early this morning issued a statement about the suspension," Sekwaila said.
Sekwaila said that the entity had earlier issued a statement about the suspension of load shedding across the country and not only within the City of Joburg.
"As a customer of Eskom, City Power communicated this suspension, which was a few hours later reversed by Eskom with the implementation of Stage 3 load shedding."
Sekwaila said that load shedding was an emotive issue that should not be used by DA councillors against the residents.
"The City of Joburg is working on a plan to reduce the over-reliance on Eskom and minimise the impact of load shedding on our residents. Some of these plans will be announced by the city and City Power in the coming days," he said.
Different townships in the City of Joburg have been marred by protests over electricity problems. This also saw the community of Naturena in Joburg’s south take to the streets over City Power’s refusal to service power outages in the area.
Also, some contractors who had been doing work for the municipality under City Power have downed tools after many of them complained of not being paid for their work done.
There had also been complaints that load shedding seemed to affect the poorer areas of Johannesburg more than the affluent areas, with people in townships like Soweto sometimes spending more than eight hours without electricity.
In the past, Eskom had complained about municipalities that were not compliant with its load-shedding schedules.
The Star