Overload on electricity becomes a nightmare for residents in Riverlea
Winter has become a nightmare for residents who live in the nines in Riverlea Extension.
Winter has become a nightmare for residents who live in the nines in Riverlea Extension. Since the season has started the residents have been living in the dark after 5 pm as the cold creeps in and many are using heaters, and stoves to keep their homes warm.
Jo-anne Borne, a resident explained: “It starts at 5 pm and then it goes off for ten minutes then it comes on and then goes off again and this goes on until about 8.30 pm sometimes. It can go off about twenty times in those few hours. The rest of the day its fine, but the moment people come from work then it starts.”
When asked how this affected her, Borne said; “First of all its cold and now when we come home we need to cook and then we can’t, its affecting our people who are living off from the oxygen machines, there’s a bakery here that is using an industrial oven, and there are houses that have about ten zozo’s (shacks) in their yards without additional circuit breakers so this power box cant cater for so much electricity.
“I had to buy emergency lamps, gas stoves, our appliances blew, my one friend’s fridge isn’t working and we must replace everything, no one is going to pay us for it. This happens every year but it looks like its getting worse this year.”
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Owner of the R&N Bakery, Rudo Bojwaramba, said that she is aware that residents blame her for using a phase 1 industrial oven but she claims to only use it during the early hours of the morning when everyone is sleeping so that it does not interfere with the electricity when residents wake up.
“I start my production at 2 am,” said the owner.
According to residents, there’s a man who goes to the transformer substation and he switches the electricity back on from there. Some are worried that one day he will get electrocuted by going into the box and switching the power on.
Andrian Thumbran said that they have to talk to the residents who have so many shacks in their yards, he said that they have to come together as a community to work out a solution to all of this. Dawn Gamiets, a resident said they shouldn’t blame it on the shack dwellers.
“Housing is a big issue here, the government doesn’t take it into consideration that communities expand and they are not upgrading the systems, we cannot turn back people who are looking for houses. We need to extend because our applications are being turned away so what must we do,” said Gamiets.
Thumbran came back to discuss the issue where residents are also shocking when they open their taps.
“Some people shock while they in the bath, others when they doing their laundry, and when they open their gates. We worried that our children can die because what if their bodies cannot take such a powerful current,” he said.
Ward Councillor Basil Douglas is aware of the situation in the community and said: “I have asked City Power to upgrade the system, they will come on Monday (July 23). City power informs me that the back rooms and the zozo’s that are using heaters and two plates for heat and they are causing the overload.”
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