After four years of power outages, Eskom has finally restored electricity in Cosmo City Ext 8
Eskom says that as part of its operations, it disconnected customers in Cosmo City who bypasses their meters, connect illegally to the Eskom network, and purchase electricity tokens from unauthorised sellers.
Cosmo City Ext 8 is no longer in the dark, as Eskom has finally resolved the recurring power outages that locals have been complaining about for four years.
Community members bemoaned the power utility’s lack of urgency in restoring power, stressing the challenges they endured on a daily basis as a result of the outages.
Pam Dlelaphantsi said that on a day they only had electricity for an hour, and they reported the problem to the power utility but nothing happened.
“Eskom told us they are busing fixing the transformer, but they haven’t finished as they said they ran out of money,” she said.
Dlelaphantsi said they used to buy electricity every month but not use it. “I couldn’t iron my children’s school uniforms, and we were tired of eating bread every day.”
Another resident, Denis Zondi, owner of Zondi’s Republic Restaurant said, “We used to lose power way before load-shedding could start, and when load-shedding ended, we still didn’t have power.”
To keep his business functioning, he had to dig deep into his pockets, which had a negative impact on him because he was not earning more income.
“Every month, I spent R1 500 on petrol to keep the refrigerator working and R300 on a gas cylinder.”
The two have also blamed Ward 100 councillor Lyborn Ndou for not doing anything to assist them.
Meanwhile, Ndou explained that he has been having meetings with the residents to address the power outages and had reported it to the power utility several times.
“If the outage started four years ago, it means the previous councillors were supposed to solve it, even if it is beyond the councillors’ duties; besides, I’m not an electrical engineer; if I were, I would have fixed it a long time ago.”
Eskom spokesperson Amanda Qithi said that the power outages in the area are the result of network overload caused by Zandspruit residents who illegally connected to the network supplying the area.
“While we were still busy with processes to upgrade and strengthen the substation supplying the area, the equipment was stolen at the substation,” Qithi explained.
This caused delays as work had to be suspended while Eskom is busy with the process to replace the stolen equipment.
However, she said the upgrade and strengthening of the substation will resume after all the processes that enable the replacement of the stolen electricity infrastructure are completed.
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