Powerless West Acres residents up in arms
Furious citizens have lost meat, groceries and electrical appliances, and have been forced to cancel holiday plans.
Today, December 30, marks nearly six days without electricity for people in West Acres in Mbombela, and they have had enough. Power has still not been restored to the area around Laerskool Laeveld as rain and scheduled power outages hamper efforts to fix the cables in the broken down mini substations.
The spokesperson for the City of Mbombela, Joseph Ngala, said most of the faults are outside the main West Acres 132/11kV substation.
“There are a few mini substations that still had faults by midnight last night. Access challenges, the rain and load-shedding are hampering testing and stopping us from switching some of these stations back on.
“We are busy with repairs at Sandy Villas, Ruby Street and Banket West. We are trying to locate the problem affecting these areas and have arranged to collect the essential joints from out of town.”
ALSO READ: Some residents in Mbombela have been without power for 50 hours
Residents in Banket Avenue, Alabama Street and surrounds have suffered huge food losses and wrecked electrical appliances due to unforeseen power surges.
Natasha Minnaar and her family lost their television and a fridge due to a power surge.
“The regular outages are bad enough. On top of everything, my daughter, Jeneil, was frustrated during her Grade 10 exams due to no internet and Wi-Fi because of load-shedding. Now the situation is much, much worse.
“We were lucky to be able to move our food to friends. We cannot understand why the Delta line is still getting load reduction when we are supposed to be connected to Rob Ferreira Hospital,” she said.
ALSO READ: Cable theft the reason for West Acres Substation damage and breakdown
Not far off, in Orange Street, Ayanda Sibiya lost about R2 000’s worth of groceries due to no refrigeration over the past five days. Power to her new home has subsequently been restored.
“We bought a whole goat for New Year’s, but that went off before we could find friends who had refrigerator space.
“My kids are furious because we had to cancel our holiday plans. We decided not to go to Mozambique because we cannot risk leaving our home without electricity. The ANC must go,” she said.
