Several areas in Germiston were left without power from the early hours of Thursday morning.
The metro said that an equipment failure at the main Elsburg substation had caused the outage and that power would be restored by midnight.
However, many residents woke-up to find they still had no electricity and the GCN was inundated with calls from residents wanting answers.
Many complained that the metro’s call taking centre staff members were unable to give them suitable answers and that the reason for the outage changed each time they called.
The GCN contacted the metro for answers.
“The cause of power failures experienced from Thursday affecting Elsburg, Tedstoneville, Parkhill Gardens, Delville, Germiston Central and surrounding areas were a combination of theft and vandalism and a medium voltage equipment failure at our main Elsburg substation which feeds the mentioned areas,” said Themba Gadebe, spokesman for the metro.
“One of the power transformers failed due to an internal fault and the other’s medium voltage switchgear was vandalised and parts stolen.
“Repairs were immediately carried out to replace the stolen and vandalised medium voltage equipment, these repairs were only completed early on Friday morning and power is gradually being restored to customers.”
Electricity is being restored to the affected areas gradually to avoid overloading the system.
“Repairs on the faulty transformer and other vandalised medium voltage equipment is currently under-way and physical security has been placed at the substation to secure equipment,” Gadebe said.
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