Residents of Mackenzie Park, Rynsoord, New Modder, Western Extension, the CBD, Northmead, Rynfield, and surrounding areas were again plunged into darkness just after 18:00 on January 27.

Residents in some areas were fuming as they were without electricity for 100 hours.

This comes after extensive repairs were conducted on a 32kVA aluminium cable that feeds the Morehill and CBD substations, following damage caused at two sections by suspected cable thieves.

At the time of the initial outage, at 01:22 on January 24, Ward 27 Clr Lornette Joseph explained that the feeder cable was replaced with an aluminum substitute to deter cable theft.

“The affected cable holds very little value for would-be criminals and unscrupulous scrap dealers,” she said.

“The repair process includes preparation of the cable before installing the joints. Once completed, a compound is poured to secure the newly repaired sections, with a waiting period of eight hours each before testing the line can commence,” explained Joseph.

Power to the CBD was restored at noon yesterday, with reports indicating that the feed was stable.

The remaining areas were systematically switched on; however, assessments conducted regarding the most recent outage indicated that the cable tripped as a result of another fault.

Fault location and repairs were expected to start on 28 January.

No restoration time has been communicated.

“Residents are fuming as they have been without electricity for 100 hours,” said Joseph.

“An enquiry has been directed to the city manager, Kagiso Lerutla, to expedite the situation.”

Points raised included:

• As contractors are being paid for handling this issue, a guarantee on the work should have been given, especially if an immediate failure occurs.

• Given the scale of the outage, two teams of jointers should have been deployed to the site to reduce repair time.

“At this stage, there is no ring feed available, meaning that the affected areas cannot temporarily be supplied while repair work continues,” she said.

“Load-sharing from another cable to offer temporary relief is also not viable at this stage.”

Lerutla acknowledged receipt of Joseph’s communication and committed to supplying residents with an update as soon as it became available.

Joseph said she would share the CoE public liability claim form on her community WhatsApp groups. This will help residents and businesses to submit claims for losses due to the prolonged outage.

“While outages caused by theft or ‘acts of God’ are excluded from public liability, incompetence is not,” she said.

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