Westonaria outage drags on
Residents in parts of Rand West City face ongoing power outages and load reduction after network damage and equipment maintenance slow reconnection efforts.
Electricity restoration to Westonaria and surrounding areas faces further delays as Eskom conducts mandatory oil testing on a newly refilled transformer.
Rand West City Local Municipality spokesperson Phillip Montshiwa confirmed in an update issued on Monday that the transformer has also been refilled with oil.
Montshiwa further confirmed, however, that an oil sample is being transported to Eskom’s testing department in Johannesburg for analysis. If the results are satisfactory, Eskom Control will instruct the technical team to proceed with energising the transformer.
Once the transformer has been successfully energised, Eskom will supply the necessary load, allowing the municipality to gradually restore electricity to affected customers.
The prolonged outage has affected Westonaria, Simunye, Venterspost, Lucky Farms and Borwa.
• Read the initial article here: Westonaria residents enter 6th day without electricity as repairs continue
Infrastructure theft and vandalism
The municipality cautioned residents that electricity may not be restored to all customers immediately after the transformer is energised. This is due to reported incidents of theft and vandalism of municipal electrical infrastructure during the outage.
Residents across all wards have been urged to refrain from stealing or vandalising electrical infrastructure, with the municipality warning that such actions disrupt electricity supply, delay restoration efforts and constitute criminal offences.
The municipality also warned that unauthorised individuals are prohibited from working on municipal electrical infrastructure.
Furthermore, because the municipality will initially be operating on one transformer, load reduction will remain in place until Eskom repairs the second transformer.
Residents have been advised to use electricity sparingly and switch off unnecessary appliances to minimise demand. They have also been warned to treat all electrical sockets and stubbies as live, even while the power remains off, for safety reasons.
The municipality apologised for the continued inconvenience and thanked affected communities for their patience and cooperation.
