eThekwini Municipality has set the record straight that its townships are also plagued by load shedding, just like residents living in other suburbs around Durban.
The City’s spokesperson, Msawakhe Mayisela, was speaking to IOL following a flurry of social media posts claiming that some areas, including Soweto, a township that can be found north of the Durban CBD were exempt from load shedding.
Also, for those confused, there is a township in Inanda called Soweto and the posts refer to this area and not the “township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city’s mining belt in the south“.
“There is no such thing. This is not true. There is no evidence to support these claims. All townships are experiencing load shedding,” Mayisela said.
In July last year, IOL reported that parts of eThekwini were exempt from load shedding and were only impacted when the country was placed on Stage 4 load shedding. Speaking to eNCA at the time, head of electricity in the city Maxwell Mthembu, explained that the City lost between 700 to 800 megawatts of power due to significant infrastructure damaged suffered in the July floods.
According to ESP, eThekwini is only affected from Stage 4 and above, this means areas falling into Block 17- 24 are not affected in the temporary schedule.
SA is currently on Stage 5 load shedding with Stage 4 kicking into effect from 5am on Friday until further notice.
IOL