Brenda Mahuma, Mayor of Rand West City Local Municipality (RWCLM) said the municipality is committed to keeping the public updated on the extended power outage that has crippled the area recently.
On 31 January, residents took to social media to air their frustrations at being left in the dark – literally and figuratively – for hours on en without RWCLM giving them any clarity.
Mahuma said the issue has been brought to the attention of the Eskom management and they will keep the public updated. She said she hoped that it would yield a speedy resolution.
Also Read:
Eskom to suspend load-shedding for two hours to ease traffic congestion
“Electricity supply has become a national crisis and RWCLM is not exempt from this situation,” Mahuma said, adding that to make matters worse, the load-shedding schedule on the Eskom app is not reliable, as it does not correspond with the actual time of implementing the blackouts – an issue that has upset residents even more.
However, the mayor said there were other factors that led to the extended power outage in the last three days, among them vandalism of municipal electricity substations, and cables being randomly stolen.
Mahuma also said the municipality will enhance its process of communication with Eskom in an effort to give the community timeous feedback on any developments.
“Most importantly, the municipality wishes to dismiss rumours that the extended power outages are due to the municipality being in arrears with its Eskom account. We genuinely regret the situation as reflected this past weekend, and deeply apologise for the inconvenience caused,” the mayor added.
