As residents of Umdloti Beach, eMdloti, Sibaya district, Verulam, Phoenix, Durban North and many other areas run by the Ethekweni municipality in KZN, South Africa, we are personally affected by the ongoing loadshedding, not purely because of the loadshedding and the inconvenience, in and of itself, but because almost EVERY TIME WITHOUT FAIL, on the frequent occasions we have loadshedding more than once a day, we end up with  power outages that last days at a time.

In 2023 we had over 27 electricity breakdowns (substations and faults) resulting in approximately 319 hours of no power OVER AND ABOVE LOADSHEDDING.

In 2024 we've had over 7  breakdowns  resulting in approximately days without electricity and counting OVER AND ABOVE LOADSHEDDING.

The power outages somehow always seem to occur after hours and on weekends and the municipality is slow to respond, and even slower to repair.

In the past 12 weeks, we have had a substation catch alight and blow up, further substations blow and countless faults. Our "yet to be repaired" infrastructure is still destroyed, due to the floods of 2022 and the most recent floods of January 2024, and cannot handle the on/off power supply.

Many of us have young children and cannot prepare meals for them due to frequent power outages. Our food is rotting and has to be thrown away on a weekly basis. This not only affects our ability to provide for our families but also contributes to unnecessary wasted resources.

Loadshedding is a serious issue that impacts every aspect of our lives - from basic needs like having lights on, cooking and heating water to more complex issues like internet connectivity and business operations. Add to that the subsequent power outages after loadshedding and the domino effect affect on our water supply which lead to water outages and  uncontained raw sewage flowing into in the streets and subsequently the ocean which is a major health concern.

According to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), around 90% of households in the country are directly affected by load shedding. 

Coastal areas in this region rely heavily on tourism, but sadly there are very few people prepared to take the risk of spending hard earned money on a "Holiday" when the risk of uncontrolled power outages is so high.

We urge the local government, Ethekweni municipality and Eskom, the primary electricity supplier in South Africa, to address this issue urgently. The continuous power outages are not just an inconvenience; they disrupt lives, hinder economic growth and pose health risks when the water stops pumping and the sewers stop working.

The recent strike only exacerbated the problem, affording ZERO service delivery, despite loadshedding being temporarily suspended. That suspension has now come to an end and the infrastructure is worse than it was before the strike.

We need reliable electricity supply now more than ever before. Our already flailing infrastructure cannot handle the loadshedding and until it is repaired as promised by eThekweni 2 years ago, we will continue to have unnecessary extended power outages, the cost of which to the municipality far outweighs the power it is saving during loadshedding, never mind the costs and inconvenience to the community.

We call upon all concerned authorities including Eskom and local government bodies responsible for energy regulation in our areas- let's end loadshedding once and for all! Sign this petition if you believe it's high time we put an end to this crisis.