load shedding

On 2 February 2023, StandUp SA led a march to Eskom’s Megawatt Park in Sunninghill to demand an end to load shedding. Image: Twitter/@PalesaDlamini_0

SONA 2023: Tshwane mayor appeals to Ramaphosa to end load shedding

Tshwane mayor appeals to Ramaphosa to outline plans at Sona 2023 to end load shedding.

load shedding

On 2 February 2023, StandUp SA led a march to Eskom’s Megawatt Park in Sunninghill to demand an end to load shedding. Image: Twitter/@PalesaDlamini_0

The City of Tshwane executive Mayor Randall Williams has appealed to President Cyril Ramaphosa to use the occasion of the 2023 State of the Nation Address (SONA) to outline a plan to end load shedding.

SONA 2023: RAMAPHOSA MUST ANNOUNCE PLANS TO END LOAD SHEDDING

Williams says load shedding has a devastating effect on the economy and the city. The Tshwane mayor says he hopes Ramaphosa will outline a plan to end load shedding during his SONA 2023 address tomorrow, 9 February 2023, at the Cape Town City Hall.

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“As a large metropolitan municipality, load shedding is severely hampering our ability to supply reliable electricity to our residents,” Williams said.

“Our municipality electricity infrastructure was never designed for load shedding and therefore continuously switching the network on and off has a major damaging impact on the infrastructure. Our maintenance and repaid cost have skyrocketed as we have to prioritise responding to faults and breakdowns due to load shedding.”

Randall Williams

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LOAD SHEDDING AFFECTS THE WATER SUPPLY NETWORK

The mayor said higher levels of load shedding also affect our ability to supply water to all residents consistently. According to Williams, load shedding severely pressures the water supply network. This affects the City of Tshwane network and Rand Water’s bulk supply systems.

“If Rand Water cannot pump water to Gauteng municipalities this can then lead to shortages across the province. This is just one of the many knock-on effects that load shedding has in hampering core services.”

Randall Williams
Tshwane load shedding SONA
City of Tshwane Executive Mayor Randall Williams. Image: Twitter/@PretoriaRekord

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We have only just started the year, and the country has already experienced some of the highest levels of load shedding in history.

“Our electricity infrastructure was never designed for load shedding. We simply cannot go on like this. The Presidency must take responsibility and ensure they focus on ending load shedding. Load shedding continues to cripple the economy,” Williams said.

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Meanwhile, the City of Tshwane announced that all their e-services, such as the electricity prepaid vending system and other related online services, are down. This means that prepaid customers will not be able to buy electricity.

Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashego said the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) had informed its customers that its internet primary and secondary links were down. This includes Gauteng, the City of Tshwane, Mpumalanga, North West, and KwaZulu-Natal.

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“The downtime has also affected our call centre lines. SITA is still assessing the cause and will customers updated on the developments, and the estimated restoration time (ERT).”

Lindela Mashigo

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