Residents in Esther Park and surrounding areas have been without electricity since Monday afternoon, August 3, with Ward 104 councillor Tracey Lourenco raising concerns over what she describes as poor communication from the City of Ekurhuleni’s Energy Department.

According to Lourenco, the outage started at about 14:00 on Monday and power had still not been restored by Wednesday, August 5.

She said residents had received a series of changing restoration timeframes from the Energy Department, with the initial estimated restoration time given as between 15:00 and 18:00 on Tuesday, August 4.

“When that time came and went with no power restored, the restoration time was moved to 20:00,” said Lourenco.

She added that at 20:00 residents were informed that repair work would continue on Wednesday.

“The latest update indicates that additional tests need to be carried out before the power can be switched on and that this work will continue today,” she said.

Lourenco said the department had not provided residents with clear information about the cause of the outage.

The councillor also raised concerns given that the Esther Park substation recently underwent a R50-million upgrade, following a nine-hour outage in the area last week for maintenance.

According to Lourenco, it has been alleged that the substation suffered a failure and that the department does not have the required spare parts available.

Kempton Express has approached the City of Ekurhuleni for comment.

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Lourenco said she visited the substation on Wednesday morning and was returning to the site to seek further answers from officials.

She added that she had engaged with Executive Mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza and the MMC for Energy but had not received responses.

“This prolonged outage is unacceptable. Residents and businesses deserve to know what caused the failure, what is being done to fix it, and when power will realistically be restored,” said Lourenco.

She said she would continue putting pressure on the Energy Department and would provide residents with updates as new information became available.

The latest estimated restoration time provided by the Energy Department is 14:00 on Wednesday, August 5.