Deteriorating infrastructure causes a two-week outage in Klopperpark

After 14 days without power, Klopperpark residents united to air their frustrations and concerns about the outage and the area’s deteriorating infrastructure.

According to Ward 92 Clr Kade Guerreiro, a cable fault on Kragbron Road caused the outage.

It reportedly affected 26 properties.

This is not the first time the community has been affected by long outages in the past year.

Klopperpark residents have endured outages lasting 21 days.

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When Bedfordview and Edenvale News met with the frustrated residents on July 9, contractors were already on site repairing the fault.

Guerreiro said they replaced the cable and restored the power the same evening. He said residents had lost thousands of rands worth of food and had to pay additional costs for gas because of the power fault.

On average, the residents lost between R1 000 and R2 000 in groceries. For those using generators, some spent at least R350 daily.

To survive the outage, many residents had to call on family, friends, and neighbours to help them with laundry, charge electronics, and, in some cases, be given power by those unaffected by the outage.

“Some residents work from home, so they lost income for 14 days with this outage. Considering this occurred during one of the coldest times of the year, it’s unacceptable that residents had to endure this.”

Guerreiro said he and the residents exhausted all the channels of communication with the city to have the power restored.

“We went to everyone and anyone to try and plead for help, and we were lucky the contractors arrived,” he said.

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“As the councillor, I am frustrated that residents had to endure 14 days without power. The city is the first to boast about its 48-hour turnaround time, but the outage extended beyond that time frame.”

Residents’ ordeals

Jolene Appelgryn said it was a difficult time not having electricity

“Working for a corporate company was difficult. I had to go in looking bad and wearing hand-washed clothes we couldn’t iron.”

Appelgryn said the outage also affected her home-schooled daughter’s academics.

To keep her phone charged so she could try and communicate with the municipality, Appelgryn said she used her car charger. She said the ordeal left her disheartened.

Belinda Cloete said the residents had had enough of the area’s unstable infrastructure.

“We have senior citizens who are almost 90 years old affected by the lack of power,” said Cloete.

Cloete said she and other community members helped senior citizens by boiling water for them when needed.
Besides the senior citizens, Cloete said some families with young children were also affected.

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Betty Dikolobs (70) said that despite not owing the municipality any money, she had to survive without power, something she found unfair.

Like many of the others affected, she had to throw away food, specifically meat that went off.

Pastor Ndivhuwo Mphepha said the period without electricity was difficult. He said after their property almost burnt down on July 6 following a gas-related accident, the family chose to use wood fires to boil water and cook.

Mphepha said the cost of wood and gas made the outage an expensive ordeal.

Impact on local business

Business owner Wadel Ngalube, who runs a business from his home, said the outage left him and his staff unable to work and generate income.

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Ngalube’s personal and professional lives were also affected.

“The business is the most important because it doesn’t just provide for my family but for four others as well. We were not getting any enquiries or incoming phone calls, and we couldn’t generate invoices.”

He said as a business owner, he is one of the community pillars, getting young people off the streets and giving them opportunities and jobs.

“How can we even help others if we can’t help ourselves with our skills and talents that we can’t use?”

Diana Seller, another affected business owner, said the 14-day outage was painful. Seller, who employs two others, said her business needs electricity for its tools and Wi-Fi.

“I had to move my business from where it was to a factory area. I had to throw away groceries and was at home alone in the dark with no electricity or alarm system.”

The feeling many residents shared was that the municipality did not care about the problem, with one saying he felt Klopperpark had been forgotten.

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According to Guerreiro, the area needs a ‘mega upgrade’ because of the old and deteriorating infrastructure in Klopperpark.

“The infrastructure is not coping at all.”

We sent a request for comment to the CoE, requesting comment by July 11 at 13:00. We had received no comment at the time of going to print.