City Power: Load shedding in Joburg made worse by Eskom ‘go-slow’
City Power says the continued go-slow by some Eskom employees is exacerbating the impact of load shedding in parts of Johannesburg.
The power utility moved to stage 3 load shedding on Wednesday morning.
Spokesperson Isaac Mangena says in some cases the electricity is not switched back on at the end of load shedding.
"Our customers have, in recent days, been hard done by when electricity is supposed to be restored after loadshedding, with many restored several hours after their scheduled restorations.
“This has been affecting customers in most of our ‘border’ areas that include Randburg, Midrand and Lenasia.
“Our areas in Johannesburg north, that include Northriding and Windsor, have been the hardest-hit with customers going for three to five hours without power after they were loadshed.”
Mangena says the Windsor substation in Northriding was loadshed at 2:00 in the morning and was due for restoration at 04:30.
But by 08:00, the electricity was yet to be restored.
"Yesterday (Tuesday) the same Windsor customers were shed at 14:00 and due to be restored by 16:30. But the customers were only restored just before 19:00 due to delayed restoration by Eskom.
“The same challenge is faced by customers supplied from Olivedale substation.”
Mangena says the issue has been raised with Eskom.
"Last week Eskom issued a statement acknowledging its challenges with its technicians' response times, and confirming they are on a go-slow over overtime allowances.
“We call on Eskom to address it staff issues, or fix their system to enable them to operate load shedding remotely instead of manually.”
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