City Power or Eskom? Who is to blame for Lenasia South outage?

City of Johannesburg MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services Michael Sun says the electricity supply is almost fully restored in Lenasia South.

Sun has assured the residents of Lenasia South that City Power is working to urgently reconnect areas that are still affected and serviced by the Lenasia South substation. He, however, laid the blamed for the power outage on Eskom.  

The suburb was plunged into darkness on Saturday with residents having no electricity for more almost two days.

Residents have voiced their anger and frustration on various platforms complaining of children being unable to study for exams, rotting food in fridges and City Power sharing misleading information on Twitter.

They have also questioned where Joburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse is, saying she had failed Lenasia South.

Who’s at fault?

Sun earlier said power had been restored to communities served by the Lotus and Ennerdale substations, but residents in the Lenasia South area were still in the dark.

“City Power needed to wait for Eskom to investigate if the fault was due to a failure in their infrastructure as the Lenasia South substation is supplied directly by Eskom.”

“As such we were unfortunately at the mercy of the national government’s state-owned bulk provider and appeal for the patience of residents as City Power works to restore power,” Sun said

ALSO READ: Lenasia South residents accuse City Power of ‘lying’ about outage updates

Power restoration

Sun said there was no estimated time of restoration in Lenasia South despite City Power stating on Sunday night the services would be restored by 10pm.

Clashes

Sun said City Power technicians confirmed the Lenasia Substation tripped on Sunday evening during attempts to restore power. It is suspected that a fault on overhead lines could be to blame.

“Community members already clashed with Eskom technicians on site, complaining about the lack of return to service. These skirmishes have delayed Eskom completing their investigations into the root cause of the ongoing problems.

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“Tensions are understandably running very high as this outage is in its second day. But I implore residents to please allow both Eskom and City Power to do their work with minimal interruption. We will do everything in our power to ensure the teams on site work as efficiently and as timeously as possible,” Sun said.

ALSO READ: Eskom announces load shedding changes for the week ahead