City Power apologises to all customers who were affected by this prolonged unplanned power outage in Bromhof, Sonneglans and Sundowner.
The outage was caused by cable termination failure following cable theft and vandalism to the network infrastructure at the Northriding Substation. A further fault was located upon restoration following the replacement of a stolen cable.
It took the entity’s team about 17 hours to replace a cable that was stolen and power supply was gradually restored to all customers that were affected by the outage.
Some residents in the areas affected showed support to the workers on sites who worked throughout the night to restore power.
Nikki Belt explained that at the end of last year (2023) their area (block 6) was without power for over 400 hours excluding load-shedding.
“It was a horrific time for our residents. Since then we have been actively assisting any entity in our area should they require anything whatsoever. Now that we can actually set our watches to load-shedding, the only time we have an unplanned outage is stolen or faulty cables. The City Power teams in our area work tirelessly to ensure the power comes back on and we therefore all work towards the common goal.”
She added that the reason they assist is that they cannot expect City Power employees to work in the evenings in dangerous areas without the bare minimum of security and lighting which is usually provided by the security company in their area.
“We have had many incidents where the work that is being carried out in the day flows over into the evening. We provide gazebos when it rains, lighting, security, and if possible, food and drinks. With this active approach, we can ensure that any work that needs to be done is done in a safe and friendly environment. Unfortunately, when residents have been without power for extended periods they rightly so, tend to get irritated and sometimes extremely aggressive to the staff that are on the ground assisting us, and therefore we have taken it upon ourselves as concerned residents to protect the teams in our area at all costs.”
“There have been many incidents where City Power employees and contractors have been held up at gunpoint and robbed of cell phones, tools, and anything else the criminals can get their hands on and I feel as residents it is within everyone’s best interest to protect these hard-working amazing people,” added Belt.
The residents were also able to send updates frequently on their groups to keep others informed and at ease during the tough times.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said that they appreciate the cooperation and support from the community and request that they join the entity in the fight against theft and vandalism of the electricity infrastructure which is affecting the reliability of supply and causing prolonged outages.
“Though we are continuously working on increasing security and employing the latest technology in monitoring our network which is vast and wide, we also appeal to our communities to partner with us in curbing this vandalism and theft of our infrastructure.”
The entity however does not encourage residents to go on site where the teams are working due to safety reasons.
“There are safety standards and regulations that must be adhered to for persons who are on site where operations of this nature are conducted,” added Mangena.
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