Erasmuskloof residents furious after delayed power restoration

Frustrated residents of Erasmuskloof in Pretoria east have lambasted Tshwane following yet another power outage caused by cable theft on Sunday evening.

Power was only restored on Tuesday afternoon, leaving households, businesses and essential institutions in the dark for nearly two days.

Among those hit hardest was Uvaldi Brunke, a mother to a three-month-old baby.

“I struggled a lot without power,” she said.

Brunke said the situation was made worse by the lack of traffic management during peak hours.

“What’s worse is that Tshwane does not even send out the Tshwane Metro Police to redirect the traffic,” she said.

“It’s frustrating to vote for a government that does not support the residents.”

Brunke believes the metro delayed its response because it didn’t have the necessary stock to carry out repairs.

“It’s even more frustrating that yesterday the job was left undone because of the overtime cuts,” she added.

Another resident, Regina Viljoen, voiced similar frustration. She said the power outage also affected traffic lights in the area.

“The robots were not working because of the cable theft. I heard the city was warned before it happened, and nothing was done,” she said.

“Tshwane is not responding to our incident, and we also heard that they are now focusing on the townships, not the suburbs.”

Ward 83 councillor Andrew Lesch confirmed that he warned senior city managers about the risk of cable theft at Wolwespruit on Tuesday, May 13, before the incident.

He said there were open trenches that had been left open, making the infrastructure vulnerable.

“I saw TMPD officials there that Tuesday evening. However, no action was taken to prevent the cable theft that took place on Sunday,” Lesch explained.

He confirmed that the metro teams only arrived on Monday, but due to overtime restrictions, the work was not completed that day.

“In some cases, overtime is allowed, like with serious water pipe bursts, but in this case, it seems it was not allowed,” he said.

He also pointed out that the affected area is a known hotspot for theft, with cables stolen in February, April and now again in May.

Lesch said critical institutions such as hospitals, the SANDF, Armscor, SITA, a police building and a fire station were impacted.

“These entities serve the sick and the old and perform important government functions,” he noted.

Lesch acknowledged widespread frustration in the community and said he posts regular updates and visits the site to monitor progress.

“These incidents are preventable to some extent. The frustration of the community is very high,” he said.

Beyond the mere loss of electricity, Lesch noted that prolonged outages significantly impact backup systems.

“Residents and businesses must spend thousands to generate their own power.

“Every time, people lose food. Long outages damage system batteries in alarms, gates, fences, and garage doors and increase the risk of crime,” he said.

While he praised the technicians for doing their best under difficult circumstances, Lesch believes better planning and oversight are urgently needed.

“With power outages, no relief can be given, but the technicians, in my opinion, do their best to resolve matters as fast as possible,” he said.

“People are very frustrated, with reason.”

The metro police department had yet to respond to Rekord’s query at the time of publishing.

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