The Rand West City Local Municipality (RWCLM) has put things into perspective regarding the more than 7-hour power outage residents experienced in different parts of town on Thursday, May 11 stating they were not responsible.
This comes after residents of Greenhills, Randgate, parts of Homelake, Wheatlands, Loumarina, Oosterplots, Wilbotsdal, and Elandsvlei Agricultural Holdings, as well as Mohlakeng Ext 4,5 and 11, Zenzele, and Lafarge were left without power for the most of the day.
RWCLM spokesperson Phillip Montshiwa said the municipality was not at fault for the outage.
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“Eskom implemented rotational load-shedding from 04:00 till 08:30. The electricity was only restored at 11:10 meaning it had been off for seven hours. A team of Eskom technicians reported that their 132kV breaker at the Middelvlei substation would not close and they would have to manually close it.
Eskom had been asked not to switch off the Drowel substation at noon again. However, the power utility shut down the Drowel substation for 30 minutes after the request was approved.
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“The RWCLM was not responsible for any power outages in any of the aforementioned areas,” said Montshiwa, who added that they, however, apologise for any inconvenience caused during this time.
He added that they humbly request all RWCLM residents to use electricity wisely, to prevent the system from overloading which can lead to long downtime periods.
