Recently appointed Eskom National Spokesperson Silkonathi Mantshantsha was contacted by the News after various attempts over the past week to obtain comment about the unprecedented load-shedding implemented on Mogale City since 30 January.
Mantshantsha noted that, “There definitely was a problem internally with Eskom. I cannot speak about a specific area right now, but in Gauteng there were areas that were affected because of non-payment”.
Read more on load-shedding here:
https://www.citizen.co.za/krugersdorp-news/401355/eskom-suspend-load-shedding-two-hours-ease-traffic-congestion/
When asked specifically about Mocale City Local Municipality’s (MCLM) debt as reported on at the beginning of January, Mantshantsha noted that he is not sure about MCLM’s standing in this regard. But, it does not seem as though the irregular power outages over the past few days have a connection with MCLM’s debt.
Firstly, MCLM has already made payments toward this debt and is in the process of alleviating that debt further. Secondly, as Mantshantsha noted, the load-shedding that Krugersdorp and surrounding areas experienced were a clerical error on their part. Eskom deviated from the previous published load-shedding schedules, but “Everyone has been restored to the national load-shedding schedule,” he added.
This follows after Mogale City was loadshedded for more than 10 hours on 30 January, and twice on 31 January. For the rest of the weekend, on 1 and 2 February, there seemed to be very little rhyme or reason as to which schedule Eskom was following, if at all any. It would seem that the problem has been resolved internally and that Mogale City will be following the usual schedule as found on their website or on load-shedding cellphone applications.
