Powerless in Welverdiend

Ten days in the bitter winter cold without any electricity. This is what residents of Welverdiend and the surrounding areas had to endure by Wednesday, 12 June.

The town’s electricity went off on the afternoon of Sunday, 2 June, and has not been on since. The Elijah Barayi Mega Housing Village, the 70’s of Khutsong Extension 5, nearest to Welverdiend on the road to Carletonville, and the Extension 6 area next to the road between Welverdiend and Khutsong are also affected.

It was only after dozens of calls to the municipality that it became clear by Monday afternoon that there was something wrong with the transformer that supplies the area.

As far as could be determined, municipal electricians obtained new oil for it on Monday, 3 June, but when it was eventually switched on again at about 18:00, it tripped again.

By Wednesday morning, a councillor staying in Welverdiend, Mr. Tollie Lubbe, received unofficial feedback from the municipality that the transformer was damaged due to its oil overheating. This was caused by a loose connection or broken conductor in the transformer, and the transformer was damaged to such an extent that it had to be taken out and sent away for repairs, which could take anything from six days to ten weeks, depending on the extent of the damage.
There was no word from the ward councillor, Mr. Thabo Mokuke, nor any official communication from the municipality. By Wednesday, 5 June, ratepayers and everyone else affected by the outage were furious, especially after it became known that the only plan left for the municipality was to have the other transformer, which had been removed two years ago, repaired. “Why has the municipality not repaired this transformer in the meantime as they had two years to do it?” was the question asked by many a Welverdiender.

By Friday, the situation in the town was desperate, and residents were furious.

“We have heard so many different accounts of what is supposed to be wrong and when the transformer will be fixed. The worst is that no one from the municipality has bothered to come here to explain to us what is actually going on,” one of the residents, Mrs. Loraine Botha De Vos, lamented.

“Your hands are tied because there is nothing you can do. Many of the people who stay here are pensioners relying on SASSA grants. They used all their money to buy meat and vegetables at the end of the month but had to eat it now in order not to lose it. They now have nothing left for the end of the month. Merafong is impoverishing our people,” complained another resident, Mrs. Carol-Anne Forster.

“Our children are also badly affected because they cannot bathe, and their school clothes cannot be ironed or, in many cases, properly washed. The classrooms are dark at school, and there is also no light for them to study at home,” Mr. Marius Matthee complained.

Matthee, an SGB member of Welverdiend’s only school, Laerskool De Beer, added that they had tried in vain to get permission from the Gauteng Department of Education to close the school a week earlier.

Their biggest concern was, however, the health and safety of elderly people, those who are ill and rely on health aids such as oxygen and dialysis machines, and those who were not fortunate enough to have access to gas, generators, or inverters.

Because of the long duration of the outage, even people who did have generators said that it became unaffordable to keep them running. The only way for many families to survive was to work together to share resources.

Many also started fires in their yards in the evenings to generate hot water for baths and cooking.

Although there were smaller protests earlier, tempers boiled over by Monday morning, and angry residents, presumably from Extension 5, Elijah Barayi, and Welverdiend, closed the main road between Carletonville and Welverdiend with burning tyres. The road between Welverdiend and Khutsong was also blocked off. Residents and protesters echoed what the other Welverdiend residents had said earlier.

“All the food that we had bought has rotted in my fridge,” one resident complained.

“We cannot learn because it is dark,” one of the young protesters, many of whom seemed to be schoolchildren, said. By Tuesday afternoon, there were promises that the old repaired transformer would be put back in place the next day.

“Power will be restored in all the affected areas today, 11 June 2024,” the municipal spokesperson, Mr Temba Fezani, promised.

This did not happen and by printing time the electricity was still off,