After almost four months of being exempt, eThekwini residents will from August 1 find themselves joining the rest of the country on the load-shedding schedule.

On Monday the eThekwini municipality confirmed it would reintroduce load-shedding after being exempt for months following the deadly April floods which damaged critical infrastructure. 

The municipality said it had become necessary for it to contribute to load-shedding to “avert a total blackout”.

“eThekwini and Eskom are in continuous engagements to avert further risks to the city’s electrical grid following extensive flood damage to electrical infrastructure. As some substations continue to be out of commission and many parts of the network require reconfiguration, the existing load-shedding schedules had to be amended.”

A temporary schedule has been established by the municipality and will be effective for stage 4 and higher.

“This schedule will be in use until further notice. Certain areas will be excluded from load-shedding because of highly compromised networks.”

DA eThekwini caucus leader Thabani Mthethwa has written to city manager Musa Mbhele to request an urgent report on repair work conducted on the metro’s electricity infrastructure and the stability of the grid after the floods.

“The DA does not believe any load-shedding should go ahead until the report is tabled and confirmation is received that eThekwini’s infrastructure is stable enough to support frequent power cuts.

“Load-shedding alone damages infrastructure. To load-shed infrastructure that might be unstable would cause even worse damage, which the municipality will not be able to control,” said Mthethwa. 

Close to 500 people died and thousands were displaced when floods swept across parts of KwaZulu-Natal in April and May.

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