Power outages leave Alberton residents in the dark for days

Days without electricity left many Alberton residents frustrated and angry.

Not only did the power outage inconvenience those working from home and ordinary residents, but it reportedly subjected people to criminal elements.

Ansie Kotze was one of many residents who shared her experience of being hard hit by the power outage. Not long after purchasing her monthly grocery, Kotze now needs to buy new food after her frozen food, worth R3 200, got spoilt during this period.

She told the RECORD that they were without power from November 21 until November 24, which caused her freezer to defrost.

“Experiencing power cuts for such a long period is very frustrating. Everything in my house is electricity driven and I don’t have gas. It is very frustrating not to be able to have hot water because I can’t do dishes, wash or cook. We needed to drive to friends’ places for hot water to at least make coffee,” said Kotze.

Kotze appealed for effective communication from the City of Ekurhuleni and also demanded more attention to be given to power outages.

“It is also not safe these days to be in the dark with such recent crime rates, it is just happening too often. Why are cables always faulty? Fix them the first time and do a lot of maintenance instead of doing them when it is too late. Not everyone is lucky to have solar or generators,” she said.

Clinton Swartz of Alberton Community Responders reiterated that electricity outages contribute greatly to crime.

“Crime in various areas has spiked due to criminals knowing we are sitting ducks without electricity. There is only so much that police can do with their limited resources.

“Security companies run around aimlessly because of alarms going off due to battery power running out. This keeps them running for nonsense and criminals have the upper hand,” he said.

Despite this, he also said as community volunteers they assist where they can to protect the community.

Intervention

According to Ward 106 councillor Alderman Bruna Haipel, continuous power outages cause huge financial losses to communities and businesses.

“Affected parties have requested claim forms and are determined to be reimbursed for their losses even if they need to take CoE to court. In a town which payment level is over 96 per cent, this is totally unacceptable.”

She said the latest devastation hit the Meyersdal Eco Estate and vast areas of Alberton.

“In the Eco Estate a transformer needed repairing and a burning cable needed replacing. Residents were then left with no power for five days due to total inefficiency of the contractor. “The contractor eventually got to the estate on the evening of the fourth day of the outage only to leave again because they did not have the necessary equipment,” said Haipel.

Among many other reasons, Haipel said this was a result of shortage of skilled staff, contractors’ expired contracts not being renewed and contractors not being paid.

She also said other contributing factors included employees not being paid for overtime and the ageing of infrastructure not being replaced.

CoE’s response

Nhlanhla Cebekhulu, City’s spokesperson, confirmed that the department became aware of an area outage in the early hours just after midnight on November 22.

“It was established that the 33 kilovolts (kV) supply tripped on Eskom side of the Eiger substation. Eskom did repairs on their side and restored 33 kV incoming supply during the course of November 22. We could not switch back areas immediately due to cable faults and attempted cable theft,” he stated.

Affected areas reportedly included Brackenhurst, parts of Brackendowns, parts of Alrode, Meyersdal, Thokoza, Randhart, General Alberts Park, Mayberry Park, Alberante and surrounding areas.

“There was attempted theft of 33kV cables in Alrode. Protection relays were also stolen in Randhart, and a cable fault on the 6.6kV outgoing supply from a secondary substation in Randhart. Supply to most of the affected areas including Brackenhurst and Brackendowns were restored on November 23,” said Cebekhulu.

He also assured that power was restored in Randhart and General Alberts Park on November 24.