Residents of Daggafontein spent most of the long weekend in the dark, and it was not load-shedding.
“I had to throw away a black bag full of meat. I had to boil water to bath,” explained Roosmarie Trindade.
The power outage happened at about 23:30 on Friday and power was only restored on Monday morning after 10:00.
“We had a lot of cable theft before, to be honest, maybe on a weekly basis. As soon as the previous mayor was voted out, the cable theft stopped immediately.
“And then this happened. After they restored the power on Monday, cables again got stolen and damaged on Tuesday morning at approximately 03:00,” she explained.
She said the residents are generally unhappy.
“Our town is filthy and unkempt. We pay rates and taxes and things like streetlights is a basic service that the municipality fails to deliver,” she added.
The director of Vita Nova Centre, Michelle Immelman, also confirmed the centre had no power for more than 50 hours.
Vita Nova is home to more than 120 children and youth with various physical disabilities and illnesses. Without electricity, they had to boil water to bathe all the residents in their care.
Their laundry also piles up quickly because the residents change clothes twice a day.
“The power outage in Daggafontein was resolved quickly on Monday, except in Ext 2 (East Dagga), which was directly affected by the cable damaged in an attempted cable theft. Their power was returned later in the afternoon after the cable was repaired,” explained Mike du Toit, councillor of Ward 76.
He also confirmed there was cable theft that knocked out parts of Daggafontein on Tuesday.
“This time the factories in the area felt the brunt of the outage until the cable was repaired. Cable theft is a national disaster that needs to be tackled with determination and resources by the security services, as it is costing the country billions and destroying our essential infrastructure.
“Our business sector cannot continue to live with load-shedding and blackouts caused by crime,” he explained.
He said he has written to the city manager pointing out the shortsightedness of the overtime policy, particularly when large industries have to stand for long periods due to a trip caused by some or other fault.
“The electricity sales lost to the city far outweigh the overtime cost. If overtime is being abused it should be tackled using robust consequence management,” he concluded.
