The rolling blackouts have led to long queues of trucks on the N4 road towards the Lebombo Border Post between Mozambique and South Africa. Some drivers claim that their trucks have been parked on the road since yesterday.
Lebombo Border Post’s Port Manager, Obed Maditsi says their generator failed to kick in following a power cut caused by a storm.
“We came with another emergency contingency plan, last night we managed to hire an additional machine for power so that in the meantime when we are still fixing this machine of ours, we are using a machine that we hired. And then it was installed last night at about 11:00, the new machine. Now if the power goes off then we are not going to stop, we are going to be able to work because now we have an additional power machine.”
Meanwhile, some truck drivers are concerned that the queue is moving slowly and they could spend another night on the road before crossing the border.
“I’ve been here since from 10:30 last night until today and then when we ask why, they say to us the system is offline. They say the generator is not working,” says one of the truck drivers.
Another driver says; ” Since 6:00 this morning, I have been in the queue. Sometimes you stay 7 hours in the queue. Sometimes a day and a night. Sometimes the border is closed because of the load shedding. Like yesterday we spent four hours in the queue we could not get out.”
South Africans have been negatively affected by the rolling blackouts:
