Power outages have been plaguing Mbombela of late. Some residents claim that since May 5, some parts of the city have been without electricity for more than 30 hours.
According to some of them, their load-shedding has increased by an hour or three hours daily. They claim that when the electricity is supposed to come back on, it goes off again for a few hours.
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Block 14 in West Acres was off for more than 13 hours, while in other parts, some residents said they had been without electricity for 24 hours. And now, with the introduction of stage 6 load-shedding this afternoon, May 7, residents can expect more long outages.
The spokesperson for the City of Mbombela, Joseph Ngala, said they are aware of the electricity outages and their officials are on the ground trying to switch on some of the areas that are off.
“As some of the power cuts were on Eskom’s side, they have attended to some of them and fixed them. Our electrician is on the ground trying to resolve the issues on our side. However, some of our team members who are trying to repair the problems are being disrupted by load-shedding,” Ngala said.
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He said West Acres is overpopulated, and the current power system is overloaded, which is one of the reasons why they are experiencing constant power outages.
Meanwhile, ongoing power outages are also affecting Valencia, Nelsville and KaMagugu. On May 5, an electrical transformer, which supplies power to the three areas, was struck by lightning, causing faults in the areas. However, a new transformer was installed on May 6.
“Our officials are working in three teams at each area, and all faults have been identified. In Orchard Village, we are organising a TLB. There are five remaining faults now, but it’s not easy to estimate the restoration time at the moment,” Ngala said.
He apologises to the affected communities and asks them to be patient with them while they resolve the issues.
