President Jacob Zuma’s official residence in Bryntirion Estate, Pretoria, and the Acacia Park parliamentary village in Cape Town, are spared from power cuts, according to Sunday’s Rapport newspaper.
For “technical reasons”, the two cannot be placed on power cut schedules, according to the two cities’ metro councils.
This is while hospitals, police stations, airports, mines, the Union Buildings and parliament are all subject to power cuts.
Tshwane metro spokesman Selby Bokaba said Bryntirion was spared power cuts as the substation that supplied it was a low-voltage one which could not be switched on and off remotely. He said there were not enough staff to go and do so manually.
Cape Town municipality spokeswoman Priya Reddy said they had limited access to the substation supplying Acacia Park. It was on the premises of Eskom’s Acacia power station.
She said they had an arrangement with Eskom that the utility could switch the substation off for the municipality, but that Eskom could not do so remotely. — Sapa