Contingency plans to ensure the provision of essential services are being drawn up by the City of Johannesburg as it tries to mitigate the crippling impact of rolling blackouts.
South Africa entered it’s fifth consecutive day of stage 4 load-shedding on Wednesday. Rolling blackouts have also continued throughout the nights, albeit at a reduced level.
The City of Johannesburg said on Wednesday that it had deployed 224 metro police officers to direct traffic – instead of fighting crime.
“The city is required to redirect JMPD officers from crime fighting duties to perform pointsmen duties as a result of load-shedding. Just this morning, 224 officers were deployed to address congestion,” said Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba.
Residents and municipal infrastructure are taking the brunt of the power cuts, which have led to numerous disruptions, including:
- outages to our aged electrical infrastructure, including damage to City Power sub-stations;
- water reservoirs not being replenished due to an inability to pump water to high-lying areas, such as Brixton;
- traffic lights flashing red across the city once power is restored, adding to gridlock on the roads; and
- criminals taking advantage of the dark.
On top of that, residents may have to consider stocking up on water.
City of Ekurhuleni energy head Mark Wilson told eNCA on Tuesday: “If you have stage 3 and 4 [load-shedding], you get your reservoir stations emptying, then you have a water crisis and water shortages in areas.”
South Africans consume more water per person per day, than the world average usage. We use approximately 237 litres of water per person per day, while people in the rest of the world only use of 173 litres of water per person, per day. #ClimateChangeAdaptation
— Water&SanitationRSA (@DWS_RSA) March 20, 2019
Source – TimesLIVE
