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Yesterday, the DA in the Tswaing Local Municipality conducted oversight inspections in Delareyville and Sannieshof to assess the impact various stages of loadshedding has on the community.

At the old age home, Huis Delarey, the impact of loadshedding is having a severe impact on the quality of life for elderly residents in need of special care. Following scheduled loadshedding on Tuesday, an underground main voltage cable exploded once electricity supply was restored after 4pm, leaving the facility without electricity until 3am yesterday morning.

The old age home was forced to contact the families of 89 elderly residents Tuesday morning to come and collect their relatives because the home was unable to provide the necessary care due to the uncertainty brought by the continuous loadshedding and subsequent blackouts due to cable theft and damage to the infrastructure.

The farming community is also negatively affected by loadshedding and additional electricity blackouts, delaying the transportation of harvests to silos since many hours are lost waiting for electricity supply to offload grains. Farmers are also hesitant to prepare fields for sowing wheat because the risk of extended electricity disruptions will negatively affect the irrigation of fields. Poultry farmers are losing the bulk of their hatchery batches due to the electricity outages.

To mitigate against the disaster of electricity disruptions, farmers are burning tens of thousands of rands of diesel to run generators to ensure that water is pumped, and that livestock are kept warm. Additionally, many farmers must invest in alternative energy sources to just ensure the basic running of their operations. This results in input costs skyrocketing and will lead to increases in food process and further constrain the entire agri-value chain resulting in job losses that we can ill afford.

NWK, for example, has 8 silo plants in the area. During blackouts, the additional cost to run each plant amounts up to R30 000 per day.

To prevent cable theft, farmers in the Tswaing-area have made available 52 bakkies at their own cost to patrol the major electricity lines during loadshedding and at night. Yesterday, 11 suspected cable thieves were arrested.

Small dorpies like Delareyville and Sannieshof struggle with interrupted electricity supply.

In Delareyville, the grid has not been upgraded for at least the last 25 years, while two additional towns were added to this old grid. This resulted in demand exceeding the supply, causing regular blackouts due to an overload of the system. The grid trips five or six times following a loadshedding session, causing massive damage to appliances and equipment.

Sannieshof is a popular target for cable theft during loadshedding. On Tuesday, cable thieves struck again for the 21st time in the last 10 months, leaving Sannieshof and surroundings without electricity for extended periods of time. Local farmers and SAPS have already made two successful arrests, but new teams of thieves show up as soon as loadshedding commence. It takes Eskom more than 24 hours each time to replace a stolen cable, while residents and businesses struggle through another day without electricity.

Following our engagements at Huis Delarey, and with the local agriculture union, the DA will write to the COGHSTA MEC, Lenah Miga, and Eskom to request that Tswaing be declared a crisis area and be exempt from loadshedding due to the dilapidated electricity distribution grid infrastructure and the prevalence of continuous cable theft.

Tswaing might be a rural municipality, but the impact and cost of loadshedding and blackouts have far reaching consequences that are suffocating communities.

Issued by Carin Visser - DA Constituency Head: Tswaing Local Municipality