Durban — While eThekwini residents brace themselves for load shedding on Wednesday, April 3, the eThekwini Municipality has announced that its electricity unit has cleared the electricity backlog outages following the strike.
“We are pleased to announce that eThekwini Municipality’s Electricity Unit has successfully cleared the backlog of electricity outages which had increased due to the illegal strike action,” municipal spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said in a brief statement on Tuesday.
She said the municipality acknowledges the country’s need to reduce the electricity load to protect the national grid.
“Therefore, from April 3, 2024, the City will comply with the national load reduction requirement as and when implemented by the national power utility, Eskom,” Sisilana said.
She urged customers to follow the normal load shedding schedule in accordance with Eskom’s load shedding status.
However, Sisilana said that if customers experience a power outage, either outside the scheduled time or when load shedding is not active, then it is a result of a fault on the network and not because of load shedding.
Please report the power outage to the Electricity Call Centre on the WhatsApp Chatbot: 076 791 2449 or call the toll-free number: 080 311 11 11 or email: Electricity.Faults@durban.gov.za
Earlier, the municipality on its Facebook page said: “Load shedding affecting eThekwini Municipality was previously suspended due to the illegal strike that occurred in March. Faults have been reduced to normal levels and the public is therefore notified that load shedding will resume tomorrow, 3 April 2024 at 6am.”
On February 29, also on its Facebook page, the municipality announced the temporary suspension of load shedding and said: “Due to the large amount of electrical faults and outages currently in the City, the load reduction in accordance with load shedding has already been met. As a result, the formal load shedding programme will be temporarily suspended.”
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