DUNCANVILLE — Several households in Duncanville have been without electricity for nearly a week, despite being included in Emfuleni Local Municipality’s planned four-day maintenance programme – a schedule that ultimately stretched to five days and still left some residents in the dark.

According to Ward 45 councillor Elize Aucamp, power was restored to most homes on Tuesday, but “a few individual households” remained without electricity. By Thursday afternoon, those homes had still not been attended to.

Aucamp says municipal electrical teams were unable to assist residents on Wednesday due to “vehicle challenges”. Late that afternoon, a local business owner reportedly offered the electrical department the use of his truck, enabling the team to return to Duncanville on Thursday. Once on site, officials determined that a cable fault was responsible for the persistent outage.

But repairs now hinge on the arrival of Emfuleni’s own testing team — a process slowed by what Aucamp says is a significant backlog. She added that the municipality no longer approves external service providers to conduct testing, saying Emfuleni prefers to do all testing internally.

Aucamp criticised the delays, saying it is “unacceptable” for residents to be left without electricity for so long.

“These affected residents are paying their dues. They deserve services. The municipality has shown little sympathy or empathy for people who have been without power since last week Friday,” she said.

Emfuleni Local Municipality had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.