SECUNDA – Some residents in Secunda have been without electricity for nearly a week after an electricity box in Henderson Street burned on Monday evening, 16 November at about 6pm.
Ms Mariaan Chamberlain, DA councillor, contacted the municipality and kept resident updated .
She said on Tuesday, 17 November, that three transformers were damaged as well as a Telkom cable.
She said the electrical team spent the whole Tuesday, 17 November on site, but could not continue with the work because they ran out of material to fix the damaged box.
Ms Chamberlain followed up with the municipality on Wednesday to see how they are progressing with ordering and getting the material and she battled to get a response from the department involved.
When Ms Chamberlain phoned Ms Elizabeth Tshabalala, the acting municipal manager of Govan Mbeki Municipality on Thursday, 19 November to follow up on the parts, she did not know anything about the electricity problem.
She then asked Ms Tshabalala to intervene urgently and she was told that the material would be available on Friday.
However, the municipality only managed to get the material on Saturday and by Saturday afternoon, residents had electricity again.
Residents complained that some of them have babies and small children and found it difficult to cope without electricity.
Residents staying in the are of the Helderberg Townhouses in Rissik Street were left in the dark on Sunday morning when they experienced problems with electricity.
Ms Chamberlain said the electricians found two cable faults in this area and the cables actually need to be replaced, but the electricians managed to fix it.
Trichardt experienced electricity problems on Monday morning and at the time of going to print, Ms Chamberlain reported the problem to the municipality.
The Ridge Times asked three people in the communications department, Messrs Donald Green, Benzi Soko and Lucky Mholongo, for comment regarding this issue on Friday, 20 November and although all three had, read their messages by Monday, 23 November they failed to acknowledge receipt of the enquiries or to reply.
