The outage came a day after residents marched to Parliament to demand urgent attention, saying their pleas to Eskom had gone unanswered.
Picture: Gallo Images
Eskom has restored power to all Khayelitsha customers after last week’s outage, but warned that illegal connections, theft and vandalism remain a serious threat to network stability and community service delivery.
Khayelitsha was plunged into darkness on Thursday following several issues, including illegal connections, leaving residents angry and frustrated.
Outage
The outage came a day after residents marched to Parliament to demand urgent attention, saying their pleas to Eskom had gone unanswered.
Residents claimed that some households have not had electricity for months.
Restoration
Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said electricity supply has been fully restored to all Khayelitsha customers affected by the power outage.
“Following extensive repair work by technical teams, electricity supply was fully restored to all affected customers on Friday. Eskom thanks customers for their patience and understanding while technical teams worked to restore supply as safely and quickly as possible.”
Illegal connections
Mokwena said the recent outage has “once again highlighted the damaging impact of illegal connections, theft, and vandalism of electricity infrastructure.”
“These criminal activities continue to overload the network, damage critical equipment and contribute to prolonged power outages, affecting entire communities,” Mokwena said,
“Eskom remains committed to providing a reliable electricity supply to our customers. However, the ongoing theft and vandalism of electricity infrastructure, coupled with illegal electricity connections, continue to undermine the stability of the network and delay service delivery,” Cape Coastal Cluster General Manager, Mbulelo Yedwa, said.
“We appeal to communities to work with us in protecting electricity infrastructure and reporting illegal activities.”
Network faults
Eskom said that although electricity supply has been restored, it will continue to attend to normal network faults and other outstanding electricity-related issues across Khayelitsha.
“Eskom will also intensify its customer and community engagement programmes to raise awareness about the dangers and consequences of illegal connections, meter tampering, as well as theft and vandalism of electricity infrastructure.
“By working together, communities can help ensure a safer, more reliable and sustainable electricity supply for everyone,” Eskom said.
