DE DEUR – Barricading the road with burning tyres, rocks, and debris, dozens of De Deur residents demonstrated their outrage after staying days without electricity.
Residents said that they have been without electricity since Saturday and that their food is rotting in their refrigerators.
Speaking to Sedibeng Ster, a resident who didn’t want to be named said: “It’s been five days since we were plunged into darkness. We have tried to engage the municipality on the issue; however, we are given the runaround. If they are not resolving the electricity crisis in Tshepong, they are working on something hence we are in the dark”.
Another resident said; “Our food is rotting in the fridges. We filled our fridges with food and now it’s getting spoiled. What are we going to do?” asked the resident.
Cars were turned back by angry protesters.
Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) Spokesman, Mojalefa ‘Chuchi’ Radebe said that the municipality is aware of power supply challenges as reported by residents.
“The outages are mostly sporadic and often attended as and when reported. There is a challenge related to a faulty pole-mounted transformer that our team was working on. The transformer in question was isolated from the grid as per the norm and power to the rest of the unaffected residents was restored,” he said.
Radebe further said that the problem started when transformers undergoing repairs are left (open) overnight while isolated from the grid.
“Today, the team went back to the site to investigate the cause of the outages. This is when they discovered all of the above information. Technicians have successfully restored the power supply,” he added.
Radebe said the municipality condemns any acts of vandalism on infrastructure as it not only affects residents but puts the lives of employees at risk. Police Spokesman, Sergeant Shaan Motsapi said police were deployed to the scene.
“Our members were deployed to a protest where residents closed roads on issues of service delivery. Our members are monitoring the incident,” he said.
