I am a local businessman based in Ackerville and we currently run the Total Garage in the area.
We have to date in this financial year lost substantial sums in revenue, and damages to equipment and loss of stock.
The power regularly goes off sometimes for almost 12 hours at a time. There is no proper feedback except the call centre asking if we can give them our account numbers, they then put you on hold and no feedback is received.
The Facebook page is sometimes helpful but we are not getting the desired results.
The latest issue is that the municipality will not go into the location as their lives are at risk if they have to switch on power.
We have had no power from August 9 and as I write this email it is August 10 at 13:00.
If Theo can arrange bodyguards for himself and municipal employees, I am sure that police services or bodyguards could be made available for employees to carry out their duties properly.
This has now become totally unacceptable, I have on numerous attempts tried to ask them to have our power supply re-routed from the industrial area and disconnected from the residential area. This has been for the last six months, nothing seems to be happening.
I will appreciate if you can have this handed to someone so this issue can be resolved.
Theo van Vuuren, administrator responds:
The garage is supplied from a substation at Ackerville hostel 3Â which is constantly being targeted by thieves and vandalized. Distribution equipment is stolen and stripped as they contain copper (high voltage circuit breakers and cables) thereby causing intermittent power interruptions on the grid in the area. The garage is affected by these actions.
Restoring the substation to a fully operational state is going to take time and serious funding is required which the municipality needs to budget for. The equipment requires long lead time for manufacturing.
The alternative supply from the industrial customers can be considered based on the customer submitting an application for alternative supply.
A feasibility study will be prepared by the municipality for the customer to consider and all costs related to the alternative supply will be for the account of the customer. The customer should also consider negotiating with the municipality for a premium supply as the industrial customers are receiving based on specific conditions.
