THE residents of Delft in the Western Cape are gatvol of load shedding.
The chairman of the Delft community policing forum (CPF), Reginald Maart, said that load shedding has made crime worse in his kasi.
He said that Delft already has a high crime rate when it comes to murders and other social ills, but the lack of electricity has made things worse.
"When there's a power cut in the morning between 4am and 6am, people get robbed on their way to work. Then when it goes off at night, there are house break-ins and shootings almost everywhere.
Resident Nomzamo Grootboom (51), who lives in Leiden, said that there are shootings almost every day in their kasi.
"When load shedding started recently, the gang wars increased. We need the government to tackle the problem of load shedding once and for all because it goes hand in hand with crime in our kasi,” she said.
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Nomzamo said every time Eskom implements load shedding, they must think of the consequences to follow.
"They must not only think of saving electricity but should also consider saving people's lives. People are being killed under the cover of darkness. Criminals are having a party every day," she said.
On Friday, 24 November, Eskom announced that there was insufficient power generation capacity and that they'd be forced to implement stage 6 load shedding over the entire weekend. The power utility said there will be more information on the situation on Monday, 27 November.
The latest crime statistics show a high murder rate in Delft, which remains at the top of the crime list with 80 killings between July and September 2023.
