Silverton residents take to the streets over persistent electricity woes
The residents claim they have been subjected to constant electricity outages for the past three weeks with an outage a day lasting from five to 11 hours.
Residents of Silverton have expressed growing frustration over poor service delivery, taking to the streets in protest this week.
The demonstrations started on April 7 and continued into the morning of April 8.
The residents are concerned over electricity supply issues, particularly persistent power outages.
They staged a peaceful march on the corner of Bronkhorspruit Road and Pretoria Road in Silverton to show their frustration.
According to residents, the outages have become more frequent and prolonged in recent weeks, disrupting daily life, business, and school activities.
Some areas reportedly experienced outages lasting up to 11 hours without any sign of relief.
They expressed frustration over the delayed response in restoring outages.
“We are tired of being ignored, we pay for services, but we are treated as if we don’t matter and these outages are disrupting our lives,” said resident Juan-Lee Olivier.
Olivier said Silverton extensions 5, 7, 8 and 11 have been mostly affected.
“For the past three weeks, our electricity supply has been very terrible, we experience constant outages for long periods and the root cause of these outages is not brought forward or permanently dealt with.”
She said the residents have had enough.
“Over the past weekend we had outages on Saturday and Sunday and the worse part is they are not for an hour, but anything from 5 hours to 11 hours, and what are we supposed to do in the meantime?”
Olivier claimed the city is doing little to help alleviate this situation.
“We will be writing to the city manager and to the office of the mayor seeking their intervention on this issue, we cannot continue to live like this,” she concluded.
Ward 46 councillor Ben Chapman said the residents were very angry.
“The residents would sometimes experience up to five outages a week and it seems like the municipality cannot get their act together.”
He suggested the issue could stem from an overloaded grid, a concern he claims the municipality has failed to acknowledge or communicate.
“It looks like the city has no funds to fix the necessary infrastructure, especially the feed from the Njala substation, which supplies power to the east of Pretoria.”
Chapman further criticised the city’s budget priorities.
“The power cuts are excessive, while the municipality is slashing budgets and they are more focused on making their books look good for the Auditor-General than actually providing basic services. It’s the residents who are paying the price.”
The residents are calling for transparency, urgent repairs, and long-term solutions for the aged electrical infrastructure.
Metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the municipality is currently faced with budget constraints, however, the region is ensuring that with the limited funds available, services are effectively and efficiently prioritised and attended to.
“The municipality has always prioritised power restoration according to the approved Electricity Norms and Standards across the city.”
He said the metro has plans which are underway to review and revise the municipality’s maintenance and infrastructure upgrade schedules, aiming to prevent delayed response times.
“These plans are currently pending finalisation and approval of the strategies and structure,” said Mashigo.
Mashigo said overtime for workers has not been cut as people claim.
“Instead, the city is implementing strategies to manage overtime effectively in the workplace, ensuring that it does not negatively impact power outage restoration efforts.”
He said the city is using multiple channels such as the website, social media, community Whatsapp groups, mainstream media, Dear Residents letters which are shared with ward councillors through the Office of the Chief Whip, customer relations management and callbacks from Fault Reporting Centre to acknowledge the issues, provide updates and offer solutions or alternative options.
Also read: Service delivery in Silverton crumbles, say residents
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