Residents of Groeneweide are suffering ongoing power cuts and turned to the Advertiser for assistance to escalate the issue to council for answers.
One resident said it has been going on for at least six months with electricity blackouts for up to 12 hours at a time.
The community is fed up with hearing that cable theft is to blame but, unfortunately, this is also the response the Advertiser received from the metro regarding the issue.
Metro spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said Dawn Park, Windmill Park, Groeneweide, Klipoortjie, Boksburg Correctional Services and Villa Liza are all supplied from one substation.
“The network is designed in such a way that a portion of Dawn Park is linked with a portion of Windmill Park,another portion of Dawn Park is linked with Villa Liza and, lastly, another portion is linked with Groeneweide and Klipoortjie.
“Unfortunately, the city has been experiencing a high rate of cable theft affecting the areas mentioned above.
“As a result, 90% of the outages are due to cable theft and about 10% to equipment failure caused by the ongoing load-shedding,” Dlamini said.
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“The equipment is not designed to be operated frequently, as we currently do.
“The issue of cable theft remains a major problem and it is even worse during load-shedding because this is when the thugs pounce.
“We have beefed up our cable theft unit and we will soon be getting more security companies to assist in this regard. We cannot go public with our efforts because this would be a security breach.
“It is also important for members of the public to assist us in dealing with this problem especially when they see suspicious activity taking place.
“It was very disappointing to recently see members of the public watching cable thieves stealing cable in Reiger Park in board day light without intervening.”
Ward councillor responds
Councillor for Ward 43 Lana Marais said last year saw more than 200 power cuts and the prediction was this would increase in 2023, as has been the case, not even two months into the year.
“If there was one singular solution, it could have been addressed and mitigated instantly, but this is not the case, which adds to more frustration for already cash strapped residents of Boksburg and South Africa.
“Groeneweide is no exception as the suburb is being crippled by power outages just like the rest of the country.
“Besides almost daily cable theft taking place, during load-shedding we are also faced with poorly maintained infrastructure, from years ago under the previous administration, and sabotage, etc.
“This is worsened by the fact that Eskom cuts power to prevent a total grid collapse and does not always adhere to the schedule, so a grid collapse could happen sooner or later.
“One must also not forget the socio-economic side, whereby during Covid a large number of people flocked to the cities, increasing the demand on the already vulnerable energy system.
“Illegal connections are a direct result of this too,” said Marais in a statement to the Advertiser.
“We encourage residents to also to look into alternative energy sources, to elevate the stress resulting from the energy crisis.”
A resident also claimed the community has requested the mayor to come and address them in the suburb and while they did receive communication from the mayor’s office, no meeting has been set.
The Advertiser is awaiting a response from the mayor’s office about this meeting.
Also Read: Police officers face disciplinary action after cables stolen in front of Reiger Park police station
