BETHAL – Residents were left in the dark once again last weekend when the electricity went off on Saturday night, 18 August.
According to Ms Marietjie Fourie, DA councillor, a ring-substation near MD Coovadia Primary School burnt and this affected only a few streets’ electricity in Bethal.
The bigger problem was a cable fault that affected the plots and other areas of Bethal.
Municipal workers first had to source the fault-finder equipment piece from a service provider because the electrician could not find the fault manually.
The electricity was still off by Sunday evening and Ms Fourie advised residents to keep their fridges closed to preserve food.
The regional manager informed Ms Fourie that a new transformer needed to be installed in the Milan Park area and 185mm of aluminium was needed to replace copper cables that were stolen.
He said there was a cable fault and it would only be fixed on Monday, 20 August, however residents are still without electricity.
Ms Fourie informed residents via social media that repairs were underway yesterday morning and it would have been completed during the course of the day.
She also told residents that the first cable fault in the Bethal plots area was detected yesterday morning.
Ms Fourie tried to organise an urgent community meeting yesterday and invited the MMC of Technical Services, Mr Dan Nhlapo, to address the community about the electrical challenges, specifically in Bethal, but she later had to cancel the meeting because the MMC was allegedly not prepared to address the community.
She informed residents late on Tuesday that the technicians implemented plans to restore the electricity at least for the night and she thanked the technicians for their efforts.
A resident made his TLB available to help the technician and municipal workers.
Ms Fourie finally managed to arrange for a few residents and herself to meet Mr Nhlapo at the site in Milan Park to discuss the electricity issues.
Ms Fourie said: “The following resolutions were taken: the municipality’s faulty thumper or fault finder will be sent to the manufacturer for a quotation to repair it at cost price in order to find faults effectively in the future.
“The line where the second fault was detected and repaired has too many joining points and Mr Nhlapo will instruct municipal workers to assess the line and possibly replace it with aluminium cables to prevent cable theft in the future.
“All the other cables will be replaced with aluminium cables in the future to prevent cable theft.
“Although thicker aluminium cables will be required to replace the copper cables, the cost on the long run will be less.
“It was established that the municipality might be paying too much for the electrical cables and enquiries will be done, and if it is true, further steps will be taken.
“A very dangerous situation with a free standing transformer was identified and it will be rectified as soon as possible.”
Ms Fourie informed residents this morning just after 9am that electricity was switched off again by the municipal team to make last night’s temporary connection a permanent one and residents should have electricity again within the next hour.
