CITY POWER APOLOGISES AS JOBURG’S NORTHERN SUBURBS STILL WITHOUT POWER

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says many residential areas are affected and traffic is also backed up as a result.

Eyewitness News

JOHANNESBURG - It’s not yet clear when electricity will be restored to Johannesburg’s northern suburbs.

A major fault at two substations, brought on by the restoration of power by Eskom, has left many areas in the dark outside of the planned load shedding times.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says many residential areas are affected and traffic is also backed up as a result.

“Which includes Fontainebleau, Randburg and the surrounding areas, including Strydom Park. We apologise for the inconvenience to the customers and motorists because even traffic lights are not working on most of the main roads.”

At the same time, Eskom has denied it’s preparing to implement stage 5 and 6 load shedding as it struggles to keep the country’s lights on.

Fin24 is reporting that officials have started preparations for stage 5 and 6, which would imply shedding 5,000 and 6,000 megawatts respectively.

However, Eskom's acting head of generation Andrew Etzinger says the plan is to “downgrade load shedding” over the next few days.

“Eskom is implementing stage 4 load shedding with no requirement to take that beyond stage 4, but media reports are to the contrary. There’s no requirement at this stage to escalate to stage 5 and 6.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Eskom said the country is far from a national blackout, but the power utility’s CEO, Phakamani Hadebe, has warned that load shedding is here to stay for the next six months.