DURBAN - In many rural municipalities the electricity is out for more than 10 hours a day according to the South African Local Government Association's KwaZulu-Natal chairperson, Thami Ntuli.
He says the areas face a total blackout if Eskom announces higher stages of rolling power cuts.
Ntuli said, "In fact as Salga in KwaZulu Natal we are not only referring to our dialogue deadlock to Eskom but also to the national government specifically the treasurer, what has happened, this load shedding in rural municipalities takes more than ten hours a day."
"When you understand that in rural areas we don't have factories, we don't have industries. The consumption of electricity is very low but they are the ones who are suffering a lot and we are saying rural municiplaities has been facing a backlog in terms of service delivery."