Residents of Witpoortjie, Lindhaven, Grobler Park and surrounding areas are fuming after being left without power again, and they cannot even blame it on load-shedding.
City Power said the unplanned outage was due to an auxiliary cable fault and they therefore needed to implement a forced power shutdown.
Power and water issues seem to be recurring in Ward 71 and the residents are fed up, turning to their councillor, René Benjamin, for answers and to air their frustrations. The only information the councillor could give was that the cable link box from one of the main feeders at the Penny Street Substation was badly burnt after it caught fire, and the service provider was arranging for spares so repairs would only start this morning, 2 September.
René said she received no update on the issue since then, but had requested more information and was waiting for a response.
While there is no clarity as to the cause of the fire, speculations point to illegal connections and poor maintenance. These residents have been without power from 8pm on 1 September, and their frustration is growing by the minute as their food goes off and their routines are put on halt.
Technicians were on scene from approximately 10pm last night, but not much could be done without the spare parts needed from the service provider. The technicians returned to the substation this morning and said that the power should be restored by this afternoon, but could not give an estimated time of repair (ETR).
The power entity apologised for the inconvenience, especially because even if the power is restored this afternoon, Ward 71 (which falls in load block 3B) will still experience load-shedding from 4pm to 8.30pm. They made it clear that the load-shedding has been ordered by Eskom, not City Power, so there is nothing they can do about it.
City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, was approached for comment on this outage and the constant outages in the ward, but by the time this article was published no answer had been received. As soon as the Record receives an update from either the ward councillor or Mangena, a follow-up article will be published.
Let us know your perspective on these issues by commenting below, or sending an email to amys@caxton.co.za.
Here are some of the Twitter and Facebook comments frustrated residents have posted.
The updated picture posted at approximately 10pm. Photo: Twitter.
No power, no etr, no maintenance, no accountability, always faults, no sorry for the disruption in service, no nothing except for a photo of the problem!
— Sandra Bee (@SandraNiemand) September 1, 2020
It has become a norm in Witpoortjie that whenever electricity goes of you must prepare for the worst. I knew we would wake up and to find the situation unchanged. When it does come back it’s gonna leave some sections out
