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Power to the people

Residents of the Greater Springs gathered on Ermelo and Wit Road to assist municipal workers restore power in their neighbourhoods

After being left in the dark for days, the residents of Greater Springs took the lead and helped municipal workers restore power in their neighbourhoods on Thursday.

From what was supposed to be a planned community protest to demand electricity restoration, the residents decided to fix the problem themselves instead of waiting in the darkness.

This action follows the power outage that affected Grootvlei, Largo, Strubenvale, Casseldale, Edelweiss, Nuffield, Selection Park, Nuffield Industries’ factories, Elmacast, and McCain.

According to the Energy Department, the material required for repairs was sourced, but the team could not start repairs because of the inclement weather.

Strubenvale resident Zaheed Chouglay said the information they received while at the site was that a cable needing replacement had burnt.

“After hearing the news, we decided to stay to ensure the municipal workers were in safe hands,” said Chouglay.

“We helped them offload cables and dig the damaged cables underground with a TLB.”

Once done with the initial repairs, they closed the hole so the site would be safe for testing.

“We escorted the municipality workers to the substation, and they emerged, saying the testing was not successful and further investigation of the cable needed to be done.

“We then returned to the original digging site and opened the hole again to identify where the fault was.”

They discovered that the cable had to be extended, which meant an extra estimated return time (ERT) for the outage.

Chouglay said after the community learnt of the further ERT, in the evening, they took it upon themselves to contribute to helping the issue.

“We called for assistance from our community group for people to come with spades and other equipment to dig up again,” said Chouglay.

Local companies donated various items, including a TLB, equipment, fuel for generators, and refreshments for all involved, including the municipal employees.

“With us working together, the entire community came out,” Chouglay said.

According to the metro’s spokesperson, Zweli Dlamini, the power outage was due to faults on the medium-voltage cable.

Dlamini said due to the rainy weather, it was difficult to get power restored, adding that there were multiple faults on the cable.

Following the power outage, Dlamini said residents can submit the liability claim forms to the Risk Management Department, where they will be considered in line with the liability claim processes.

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