Residents from wards 82, 56, 42 and 59 have voiced growing frustration over prolonged electricity outages, with some areas reportedly left without power for up to two weeks at a time.
A petition signed by over 1 000 residents from Pretoria Old East is now calling on the Tshwane metro to deploy more resources, budget and technical staff to Region 3, where communities say infrastructure failures and delayed repairs have become increasingly common.
The petition was supported by ward councillors Siobhan Muller, Tiaan Dippenaar, Shaun Wilkinson and Eddie Mathee.
Muller said residents and businesses were struggling to cope with repeated outages and slow turnaround times.
“We, the residents of Pretoria Old East in Region 3, including Ward 82, Ward 56, Ward 42 and Ward 59, demand that the City of Tshwane act to resolve the severe power outages lasting for up to two weeks on average, sometimes even longer,” said Muller.
She said communities believed there was insufficient staff capacity within the metro to deal with electricity failures effectively.
“There is clearly not enough capacity, and residents and businesses are crippled with long outages. Every weekend, the problem gets worse, as very limited teams are working, limited resources are available, and overtime is cut or limited,” she said.
Muller added that residents felt abandoned by the metro despite continued payment for municipal services.
“The claim by the mayor that service delivery is rolled out to all residents is disingenuous and insulting, as ratepayers and businesses sit in darkness for extended periods,” she said.
The concerns raised by residents come amid growing criticism from the DA over the state of the city’s electricity infrastructure.
DA Tshwane spokesperson on utilities, Themba Fosi, said regional electricity departments were operating with inadequate budgets and staffing shortages.
“Currently, regional electricity departments are being forced to operate on an average budget of just R1.5-million per region. In the context of a major metro grid like the City of Tshwane, this is a drop in the ocean,” said Fosi.
According to Fosi, regions 3, 4 and 6 have been among the hardest hit by infrastructure failures and delayed maintenance.
He claimed the metro’s electricity network continues to deteriorate due to a lack of preventative maintenance, insufficient procurement of parts and a reported 40% vacancy rate within the staffing structure.
Fosi added that outages, which should normally be resolved within hours, are now lasting for days as backlogs continue to grow.
He has called on the metro to redirect technical staff and resources to the worst-affected areas to help reduce the growing number of unresolved outages.
At the time of publication, the Tshwane metro had not responded to Rekord’s request for comment.
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