Fact check: Does Soweto get less load-shedding than the rest of Joburg?

Jan

Jan

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The truth about Soweto load-shedding versus rich suburbs

A false claim is being peddled on social media that Soweto is getting less load-shedding than affluent and middle-class suburbs in South Africa.

The posts have primarily been spread via Twitter and WhatsApp, accompanied by a screenshot from EskomSePush of the outage schedule for an area called "Soweto (3)".
 
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Fair enough, flood damage and all that. But seeing as this is South Africa, the flood will be used as an excuse for many millenia to come.
 
Plenty of areas do not get loadshed. Two examples:
Parts of Randparkridge where the power has not gone off since May. Not anecdotal evidence - people who run a business in that area have said it and I was there during loadshedding and their power was on.
Parts of Bryanston around the country club and Golf Course have not been loadshed since June. Again not anecdotal because I work in an office park in the area and power has definitely not been off once in 3-4 months.

Some areas are definitely being favoured - why? Who knows. Does it happen. 100%
 
VooDooC said:
Fair enough, flood damage and all that. But seeing as this is South Africa, the flood will be used as an excuse for many millenia to come.
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The excuse will be used for a while without a doubt, but the damage to the infrastructure during those floods was immense, and it will take at least 2 years to even vaguely fix all of it, if the city was to adopt the same load shedding schedules as the rest of the country, then they may as well just turn the city off permanently since more than half of the network will quite literally blow up within 2 or 3 days.
 
Only way to avoid the LS is to move next door to an ANC fatcat
 
One of the areas we visit isn't getting loadshedding since two days ago. They turned it off on Monday and they struggled for manyyyy hours to get the grid back up. Once they did I think they are too scared to drop it again.

Will see, next slot is from 12-2pm
 
ToxicBunny said:
The excuse will be used for a while without a doubt, but the damage to the infrastructure during those floods was immense, and it will take at least 2 years to even vaguely fix all of it, if the city was to adopt the same load shedding schedules as the rest of the country, then they may as well just turn the city off permanently since more than half of the network will quite literally blow up within 2 or 3 days.
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I'm not aware of any one area that hasnt suffered an additional failure since they started loadshedding again, just look at the ethekwhini twitter account for unplanned outages, list is huge every day with stuff failing.
 
South Africa has several towns and places that have the same or similar names, including:

  • Middelburg — Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape have towns called Middelburg.
  • Pietersburg and Pietermaritzburg — The first is the former name of Polokwane, the capital of Limpopo, while the latter is the capital of KwaZulu-Natal.
  • Hartbeesfontein and Hartbeespoort — The former is a settlement near Klerksdorp in the North West. The latter is on the border between North West and Gauteng and hosts a big dam.
  • Somerset East and Somerset West — Although they might sound like two sides of the same town, they are over 770km apart.
  • Ventersdorp, Ventersburg, Venterstad — Three different towns located in the North West, Free State, and the Eastern Cape, respectively.
  • Vrede, Vredenburg, and Vredendal — Again, three different towns. The first is in the Free State and has a well-known failed dairy farm, while the latter two are in the Western Cape.
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Just rename them. Should sort all the issues out...
 
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