Hundreds of Households in Kariega Left in the Dark

Nelson Mandela Bay municipality officials met with community leaders and residents of Khayelitsha in Kariega. They discussed their complaints about “load reduction”. This comes as the municipality has urged residents to pay their electricity bills as it struggles to recover over R17-billion in unpaid bills.

Community members of Khayelitsha in Kariega are up in arms, demanding that the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality remove them from the load reduction schedule.

This comes as the municipality has urged residents to pay their electricity bills as it struggles to recover over R17-billion in unpaid bills.

Many households in wards 42, 43 and 44 are left in the dark for at least four hours a day as the municipality implements load reduction. Unlike loadshedding, load reduction is typically targeted at specific areas experiencing issues like vandalism, extensive illegal connections and overloaded transformers.

But Khayelitsha residents argue they are unfairly being targeted for load reduction. On Tuesday, residents met with officials from the municipality’s energy department after they threatened to protest.

One resident complained that criminals kept tabs on the load reduction schedule as it appeared more incidents occurred during these designated hours.

Ward 44 Councillor Luzuko Ndamse (ANC) pointed out that many community groups like the boxing and weightlifting clubs were unable to continue their activities in the evenings. “We wanted the senior electricity and energy officials and those on the ground to come and explain to us what is going on. This happens every winter,” said Ndamse.

He added that the streetlights and high mast lighting were also off in the community, making people feel unsafe.

Another resident, Xoli Moyane asked the municipality to do a feasibility study on the cables in use in KwaNobuhle and Khayelitsha. She complained that their appliances get damaged when power is restored. She added that the municipality’s compensation process was too cumbersome for most people.

The City’s acting director of electricity and energy, Tholi Biyela, said he understood the residents’ frustration. He assured them that the municipality is working to repair a faulty cable. “Sometimes load reduction itself causes faults, hence power can be restored after more than two hours than originally planned… We will communicate with the ward councillors constantly. We expect to have the problem fixed in two weeks,” he said.

Biyela explained that load reduction was essential to preventing the entire community of KwaNobuhle being plunged into darkness. He said there were major issues with electricity theft and transformers being overloaded in Khayelitsha.

On the issue of streetlights, Biyela said that nine companies have been awarded tenders to fix the lights, over a three-year period. Work will start next month, he said.

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