Constant outages causing havoc

Power outages are jeopardising water supplies across Chris Hani District Municipality.

The municipality’s spokesperson Lonwabo Kowa said: “Reservoir levels remain in distress as pumping-in is constantly interrupted for a prolonged period on a daily basis. This adds more pressure on areas that were already experiencing water shortages,” he said.

Kowa said some areas in Komani especially high-lying areas, and Cala, Engcobo, Cofimvaba, Cacadu and Tsomo were experiencing water outages.

Border-Kei Chamber of Business spokesperson Adre Bartis said: “With Eskom not sticking to their schedule and outages taking place at different times and [with] the changing stages, it makes it difficult for business to operate.

“Businesses are running on a minimum of R1,000 petrol per day and the generators cannot handle running for an indefinite period. Although it’s just a two-hour cut, sometimes ... they stay without electricity for more than six hours.”

The constant outages also impacted the water supply to Komani.

“Although Chris Hani District has four generators to look after the town there is no pump at the McEwan pump station,” Bartis said.

She said: “In an ideal situation we will have water from the reservoirs even if the water is low, but because we still don't

have the Xonxa dam bulk water supply up and running we only get enough water to fill up the sump which feeds into our pipes.” This could take up to eight hours.

“If this continues for the next two weeks, small businesses are going to be forced to close or even retrench staff as they will not cope. Businesses did not budget for this and their appliances will get affected.

“Smaller businesses can’t afford generators which means their shops close for the period the electricity goes. On stage 4, electricity goes twice a day and if it gets worse businesses won’t be around,” Bartis said.

She expressed concern the poor infrastructure of the Enoch Mgijima municipality would not be be able to handle the supply switching on-andoff. “Our municipality is financially depressed. To have electricity not coming for a long time this means people will have to work overtime and the municipality can’t afford that,” she said.