The extensive power outages across the Christmas holiday season prompted keen interest in the Ward 22 public meeting last week.

Cllr Privi Makhan told more than 30 residents who attended the meeting at the Salt Rock library that the 81 days of outages across a 90-day period – a combination of Eskom loadshedding and municipal network faults – had caused deep dissatisfaction in the community.

KwaDukuza municipality (KDM) electricity senior manager Nhlaka Biyela told the meeting the addition of R40-million to the municipal electricity budget would allow two major problems to be fixed.

Biyela said that the stability of the network has been affected by loadshedding plus damaged KDM switchgear. Cables at Shaka’s Head and between Shakaskraal and Sheffield that had been damaged by recent floodwater were being replaced and an additional substation was being installed at Shaka’s Head to address an increase in demand brought by the growth of the area.

The work was expected to be complete by the end of April.

The meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the level of preventative maintenance and supervision of contractors working on the network. Biyela said these would be addressed.

Arising from a discussion on the level of illegal electricity connections in informal settlements, Cllr Makhan said KDM was negotiating with the Department of Human Settlements to provide housing at Sheffield, including the necessary water and electricity infrastructure.

Deon Viljoen of the Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers’ Association said Docrra, the chamber of commerce, police and private security were working together with the municipality in an attempt to solve the problems. In addition, he was hopeful that an investigation by the national electricity regulator, Nersa, scheduled to start on May 1, would also provide solutions.

• Note: The headline on this article was changed from “Additional substation to be installed at Shaka’s Head to combat power instability” to “R40-million in additional budget allocated to combat KwaDukuza power instability” on April 3. The substation referred to in the article is the Dukuza Substation, which was already underway before the extra budget allocation.

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