Durban — In an unexpected move, the eThekwini Municipality has temporarily suspended load shedding.
Residents expecting to be load shed from 6pm, especially after getting the notification from the EskomSePush app, were surprised when the electricity stayed on. The country is currently on stage 2 load shedding.
In a brief announcement on its Facebook page Thursday afternoon, the eThekwini Municipality 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,” the municipality said.
There was mixed reaction from Facebook users regarding the municipality’s announcement:
Dave Claxton said: “Feel for those families who have no power due to faults and those without water, neither will be fixed whilst this strike is ongoing.”
Siyabonga Cyah said: “Load shedding is the main cause of these power outages, when there’s no load shedding we don’t experience many power outages.”
Darrell Cuthbert said: “So the good news is there’s no load shedding, the bad news is there’s no power to shed anyway because the infrastructure is collapsing…”
Shevaun Van Eyssen said: “No load shedding but our area has been without electricity since 10 this morning. Last week was the same story. I would rather have load shedding. At least it’s only 2 hours. Who is going to compensate us for all the food we have to throw away when our freezers start defrosting?”
Jaishree Piyarilall said they could stop load shedding if they wanted. She knew that all along.
Taslyn Chanel Wright said: “And here I am waiting for lights to go off at 6.”
Graham Rice said: “EThekwini Municipality the other day you stated you have no control over load shedding and told the poster to take it up with Eskom. Suddenly you now have control. How does that happen?”
Imtiaz Buckas said: “I'll simplify it… Due to everything breaking and no longer working, we will suspend load shedding as you won't have electricity anyways, once everything is fixed, we will resume load shedding.”
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