Residents in Elsburg are at their wits’ end as they have had to learn to deal with extended power outages.
In recent weeks the suburb has had to deal with two of these prolonged power outages.
The first of these outages took place at the beginning of November and lasted more than 60 hours, according to residents.
“Elsburg has been without electricity for several days and no one is worried about doing their jobs. They’d rather sit and sleep,” said Sonja Pestana during the outage.
“All our food has gone off and the metro won’t replace it.
“My husband has a medical condition and needs machines that need electricity to function, but we are without electricity.”
Pestana further claimed that residents were receiving no help from the metro’s call taking centre or Ward 39 councillor Alta de Beer, a sentiment echoed by a number of other community members.
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De Beer visited the site where work was carried out and commented that work was delayed for several reasons.
“One of the reasons for the delay in restoration was that officials could not gain access to a company in Elsburg to test cables,” de Beer said.
She continued to provide feedback to the community as it became available to her.
The power was finally restored to the area and the metro claimed the outage had been caused by multiple cable faults on several medium voltage distribution cables.
“The anticipated restoration time frame was prolonged due to multiple cable faults on our medium voltage distribution cables,” said Themba Gadebe, spokesperson for the metro.
“The weather also played a role in the delayed restoration time.”
When asked why the call taking centre had not been able to assist residents with information regarding the outage Gadebe responded, “Feedback was communicated through the ward councillor on a regular basis regarding the outage.”
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On Wednesday the suburb was plunged into darkness once again.
“Yet again the whole of Elsburg is without electricity. When will this come to an end?” said Pestana.
In the latest outage it was alleged that metro technicians were unable to gain access to the substation in Naauw Street, where the fault was alleged to be, as it was situated in a business property which was locked.
“The business owner locks the gate and the metro technicians couldn’t gain access to the substation,” said Ester De Lange, a community member.
“Apparently no one had the business owner’s contact number, so the people of Elsburg had to go without power until he arrived and unlocked the gate.”
De Beer confirmed that work on power restoration could only begin on Thursday morning.
“Power was restored to the affected areas by 9pm on Thursday evening,” said de Beer.
The GCN sent a query to the metro to find out the cause behind the latest outage and to address the allegation that the metro technicians were unable to access to the substation.
At the time of going to press no comment had been received from the metro.
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