Power failures are nothing new to Germiston residents.
On Friday, several areas were left without power for most of the day as metro technicians installed a new circuit breaker at the Germiston North Substation.
Residents from other areas, such as Lambton, Tedstoneville, Primrose, Marlands, the Germiston CBD and Elspark, have contacted the GCN on countless occasions in a desperate attempt to find out what is happening.
The GCN has contacted the metro each time a power outage has been reported, but often receives no comment.
In the latest comment from the metro, spokesman Themba Gadebe said: “In the past three months we have experienced in excess of 15 outages in Germiston, many around the Tedstoneville, Lambton and Elsburg area.
“These outages are caused mostly by third party interference.
“Interference includes attempted theft, theft and vandalism of metro equipment such as cables and mini-substations.
“Others outages were caused by normal wear and tear of electrical equipment.”
He explained that these damages, thefts and vandalism can result in prolonged outages, as the damaged or stolen equipment needs to be replaced and/or repaired.
Asked what steps the metro is taking to ensure that these power outages stop, Gadebe said: “On Friday, the metro carried out planned maintenance, which will assist in normalising the electrical network damaged in the past three months.
“This will reduce the number of erroneous outages, however, this will not prevent third party interference.
“To combat third party interference we have placed guards at the substations where we experience severe theft.
“We have also replaced copper cables with aluminium cables where there are repeated thefts.”
Other articles you may be interested in:
Reporting metro complaints to the GCN
Primrose pothole continues to grow
