Residents in parts of Georginia have spent days without electricity, with many growing frustrated over delays in restoring power as cold weather continues to grip the area.

According to resident Glen Oliphant, the outage started on the evening of May 10 and has affected 7th Avenue, Cameron, Belfour and Manor streets.

Oliphant said residents have repeatedly logged and escalated calls to City Power, but remain without electricity.

“We are told it is a cable fault at a substation and that it may take several more days to resolve the issue. We have elderly residents who depend on oxygen machines, as well as community members working remotely, who are being severely affected,” he said.

Also read: Water outages in northern suburbs due to valve maintenance

He added that he visited the Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre on May 14 but was still unable to get assistance.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the utility is aware of the outage and denied claims that no resources had been deployed to investigate the problem.

According to Mangena, the outage was officially reported on May 12, although residents had reference numbers dating back to the day of the outage and May 11.

“Technical teams attended to the outage, and investigations confirmed that specialised fault location through the test branch was required to pinpoint the exact fault location before repairs could proceed.

“Underground fault location is often intricate and requires specialised technical equipment. At times, a fault can be located within the hour, but with the Georginia outage feeding from the Argyll Switching Station, it is taking longer to establish the exact fault location.

“The team is struggling to locate the fault yet, and backfeeding is not an option because of the existing cable fault. Currently, the 7th Avenue mini substation remains off while the team awaits fault location results,” said Mangena.

City Power also stated that Roodepoort currently has more than 1 000 open calls, including seven medium-voltage outages being managed by three operators, two electricians and one trainee operator handling switching and restoration processes.