Many residents experienced a dark Christmas when they were left without electricity from December 23 to December 31.
Ms Mariaan Chamberlain, DA councillor, said there were three cable faults in Ring Sub 4 that affected the residential areas across Highveld Park High School, the area near Solly’s Supermarket and the areas around Buhrmann Street.
Municipal workers battled to find the faults because of all the rain.
“If the ground is wet, it makes it even more difficult for the thumper to trace the cable faults,” said Ms Chamberlain.
Residents were very angry because many had to throw away all their meat and other food they bought to prepare for their Christmas meals.
Electricity in the industrial area of Secunda was also off for a few days in December and in November the surrounding areas of Ring Sub 1 were left in the dark for 11 days.
Businesses also suffered losses and a butchery owner said they could not make any biltong hampers for Christmas because they had no place to store the meat as their fridges were off.
“The continuing rain made it very difficult for the municipal workers to work on the cables as well, because the ground was wet and they cannot work non-stop in the rain.”
A few businesses in the area helped by providing equipment to dig holes to fix the cables.
Bethal residents were also left in the dark on Christmas from 09:00 to about 15:00 and on December 26 municipal workers again switched off the electricity off work on the electricity issues.
