The DA has written to the Acting City Manager Musa Mbhele  and the Head of the Electricity Department Maxwell Mthembu to request that urgent repairs to electricity infrastructure need expediting. We are deeply concerned about the state of eThekwini's electricity network.

Frequent outages have been worsened by loadshedding and a lack of adequate security at municipal substations. Apart from the infrastructure, the reintroduction of internal security measures across the Municipality is also critical.

The substation on Umgeni Road in Morningside was broken into and vandalized on the 3rd of February 2022. This caused subsequent damage to underground electricity cables and resulted in a prolonged outage for Morningside residents.

This incident occurred less than a month after the 275kV Klaarwater Substation exploded, causing widespread outages across the city.

These incidents could have been avoided if adequate maintenance and security arrangements were in place.

eThekwini Municipality is failing to protect essential infrastructure such as substations from vandalism and theft as the internal defence/security mechanisms have all been removed. These mechanisms would release pepper spray if a substation is broken into and provide a strong deterrent against theft.

As a result, various criminal elements repeatedly damaged the infrastructure for political or financial gain.  The lack of adequate security is costing the municipality and the ratepayers millions of rand in repairs and irrecoverable losses.  This includes the effects on ordinary homes when food spoils and those dependent on electricity for health reasons cannot access it.

The local economy and the livelihoods of eThekwini residents and ratepayers have been drastically impacted by the city’s electricity issues.

The Democratic Alliance will continue driving the critical issue of maintenance and upgrade of basic infrastructure. To this end, a meeting has been requested with the Head of the Electricity Department to get to the bottom of these issues.

 

Issued by DA eThekwini Councillor, Cllr. Ernest Smith