Residents of Pretoria suburb will have to contend with power cuts for weeks

Residents of Centurion will continue to experience power cuts for the next few weeks while the City of Tshwane repairs and installs equipment to halt unscheduled outages that have plagued residents since December.

Tshwane MMC responsible for region 4, Cilliers Brink, said the city had been experiencing faults at the Raslouw substation and its feeder cables, affecting residents of the area as well as those in Monavoni.

But rectifying and stabilising electricity in the area required capital and operational expenditure, which was “carefully” planned, Brink said.

“On Monday, I met senior electricity officials and their counterparts from the service delivery region and received a comprehensive technical briefing of the progress made and action … required. “However, we appreciate that the time for planning has now expired and the city leadership has demanded an action timeline from electricity officials. “This will be shared with the community as soon as credible commitment can be made.”

In the meantime, the regional service delivery department would on Monday start an “intensive” overhead line maintenance and tree pruning programme.

The interim plan was expected to take five weeks and would include the installation and repair equipment to improve line protection such as isolators and fuses.

The maintenance programme would have scheduled interruptions, but these would be communicated to the public and councillors in advance to reduce any inconvenience.

“Sadly, contact cable theft in Raslouw is compounding the problem of electricity outages and to constantly replace cables depletes the maintenance and repairs budget of the service delivery region. Community policing forums are crucial in the fight against cable theft, especially sparsely populated areas. They link community members with the police and resources.”

He said he has called on councillors in the area to initiate and establish a community policing forum to fight the scourge of cable theft.

“During any scheduled outages, residents are urged to treat all electrical points as live at all times. The city wishes to apologise for the inconvenience that might arise as a result of these interruptions,” Brink said.

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

//

For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.