Ratepayers living around Laerskool Dagbreek struggled with electricity issues for some time as the electrical substation in Olivine Street was continually vandalised.
After pleading with the municipality to secure the facility, the residents took matters into their hands and secured it themselves last year. They erected a palisade fence around it, put up a safety camera, and put proper locks on the gate and doors, and the keys were kept by one of the residents.
Great was their surprise, therefore, when the substation started burning on the night of Wednesday, 12 July.
“This is huge damage. How long will we be without electricity this time?” one of the residents, Mr Bennie Combrinck, complained.
The residents’ fears came true when municipal workers only started working on the problem after the weekend.
By Tuesday, the area was still without electricity, and the municipality did not answer questions about what had caused the fire or if it was related to some maintenance issue.
“On the night of the fire, I was first on the scene, and there were explosions inside. I told the electricians the transformer had burnt, but they said it was only a cable. Why did they not bother to listen or come to check until this morning?” Combrinck fumed.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, the municipality acknowledged that the electricity was still not back on and said Granite, Chrome, and Olivine streets and parts of Dolomite Street and Onyx Drive were affected.
“The supplier received the purchase order for the material to repair the substation. However, on Monday, 17 July, the electrical team conducted a transformer test and found the transformer was faulty and required replacement. The municipality is busy ordering a new transformer. The municipality will update the community as soon as it is delivered. The electrical team will start replacing the burnt cables while waiting for the delivery,” said the municipal manager, Mr Dumisani Mabuza.