Kya Sands businessman Keith Horwood said the power outage saga has been going on for two years. “The industrialists in Kya Sands have been brought to their knees by these continuing power outages and tens of millions of rands are being lost every month,” he said. Most recently there was an alleged cable theft at substation 108 which left part of Kya Sands without power for days.
Apart from the outages, Horwood also blamed City Power for the delay in the building of a new bridge on Main Road in Kya Sands. The Main Road bridge was severely damaged during last February’s floods. “In spite of knowing about the building of the bridge for over a year City Power has failed to move poles and overhead cables that are in the way of the bridge construction,” Horwood said.
He and other business owners in the industrial park are now taking their concerns to the Public Protector.
According to Sol Masolo, spokesperson for City Power there was a cable fault on 12 and 14 February which caused power outages that affected the Kya Sands industrial park and surrounding areas. On 13 February there was an attempted cable theft and vandalism that also caused a power outage. Masolo said all three outages were restored by City Power technicians on the same days they occurred.
“In regard to the construction of a bridge, and City Power having to move cables and poles, the company building a bridge needs to submit drawings to City Power Planning Department so that City Power can issue a quotation for the job,” he said.
He added that City Power would only be able to remove the cables and poles once the bridge construction company had paid the power utility for this work.
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