Blame game on over power outages in Tshwane

The illegal South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) strike in Tshwane was to blame for Pretoria north residents being without power for several days.

Residents of Akasia, Clarens, Theresa Park and Nina Park took to the streets on Saturday, burning tyres and protesting for being without power since Thursday, days before the local elections.

The crowd was dispersed by Tshwane metro police officers with rubber bullets and tear gas.

According to ward 98 DA councillor Marnette Sutherland, the power outage was due to load shedding, with some substations experiencing power trips when power was switched back on.

But the main cause of the delay in restoring power was the illegal Samwu strike, she claimed. The union has been protesting for the past week about a wage increase.

ALSO READ: City of Tshwane to get new manager

Due to the strike, technicians were not available to restore power timeously, said Sutherland.

“But they started working again on Saturday. There are strikers who don’t want these officials to work. [Technicians who restored power] were in danger and the metro police had to watch over them.”

The use of rubber bullets and tear gas on protesters was unnecessary, ward 98 ANC councillor candidate Boitumelo Thage said.

“The protest was not violent. I didn’t understand why they would do that. We told the police the people were unarmed.”

She claimed the residents took to the streets was because Sutherland, as ward councillor, was hard to reach.

“She was absent on an issue in the ward. We managed to get the technicians out and power was restored about 1am yesterday.”

The outage was, however, caused by rain, said City of Tshwane spokesperson Selby Bokaba. “We have attended to most complaints and will continue with clearing the backlog of 500 complaints lodged on Friday as a result of the storm.”

READ MORE: Tshwane metro to bill Samwu for damages after workers go on illegal strike

Eskom on Friday suspended load shedding, but customers in Gauteng experienced supply interruptions due to network faults.

Eskom technicians went on a go-slow, which extended the turnaround time to restore power, the power utility said yesterday.

Gauteng cluster senior manager Daphne Mokwena said the utility met with trade unions and labour matters were resolved.

“We are working on restoring supply but due to the backlog, the turnaround time is longer,” she said. Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said implementing load shedding in the coming week would be a last resort.