Power woes set to continue says councillor

Overwhelming.
This is how Brakpan DA ward councillor Brandon Pretorius has described the number of queries he has received from residents regarding the implementation of load-shedding, as well as an influx of separate power outages.
“The immediate and unexpected implementation of load-shedding by Eskom has hit not only the community of Brakpan hard, but it has had and continues to have a huge impact on the whole country,” he said.
“It has been extremely difficult to assist the community with information like updated schedules as this type of information has not been forthcoming or the implementation of load-shedding has not been done to the tune of any type of schedule.
“The other irritating fact is yet again that the administration of Ekurhuleni metro continues to show its residents that it does not care for them and this is done through the complete disregard they show when it comes to general maintenance of infrastructure and, in this case, energy infrastructure.”
Pretorius told the Herald he receives complaints daily from residents about electricity issues.
“Residents complain that when the electricity is switched back on after load-shedding that their power does not get restored and it seems that when the power has restored the surge of sudden electricity hits out old and failing infrastructure,” he said.

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“The problem is that the department gets overwhelmed with queries and is unable to attend to outages within turnaround times.
“In the past week, we have had numerous residents who have suffered power outages up to four and five days.
“I will continue to keep residents as updated as I possibly can but I will say this, I cannot see the situation that we find ourselves in changing soon. Residents should try and do all they possibly can to prepare and keep our community safe.”
Pretorius reminded residents to contact the Ekurhuleni call centre on 0860 543 000 to report power outages.
“If any resident finds themselves in a situation where their power is still off after other residents’ power has been restored, immediately report the outage to ensure it is noted by the City,” he said.
“I will ensure that any new information regarding updated schedules that has not been shared already will be communicated to the community as soon as possible to try and better the circumstances we find ourselves in.”