The unstable electricity supply in Geleksdul and Langaville has left residents feeling frustrated and worried as winter approaches.
Ward councillor Henry Buitendacht took the African Reporter to the areas where the faults tend to occur.
He said that he understands the frustration by the communities, but when the faults occur, it takes time to find them, obtain new cables and wait for the teams on sites.
Buitendacht emphasised that residents should wait for credible information when the outages occur to avoid spreading fake news.
Ward Clr Henry Buitendacht points to an old cable. Photo: Zamokuhle Ndawonde
According to the councillor, ageing infrastructure is the cause of the outages, and a lot of money will be needed to fix everything.
“The Department of Energy gives the money to fix faults in the area, but at the rate of the faults, the money will soon run out, meaning the department has to outsource.
“The outages happen at random hours of the day, even at night, which means we have to wait for theelectricians to come in the morning to fix the matter, which can take an entire day,” he said.
Buitendacht explained that the electricians shared that outages will happen from time to time unless the infrastructure supplying the area with electricity is repaired.
One of the sites where cable faults occur. Photo: Zamokuhle Ndawonde
He added that the cables are decades old, and with more homes being built, it has been hard on the substation to supply power.
He highlighted that cable theft is also one of the factors affecting outages. He shared that the electricity cables that run on the ground no longer contain copper due to the amount of cable theft.
“The cables now use aluminium, which has no monetary value compared to copper. We urge the community to stop cable theft because it is a setback financially, instead of using the money elsewhere in the community.”
A security officer from Royal North Security told the publication that thieves tend to come into the area at night and try to dig out the cables.
“Recently, during a night shift, we saw people, and we chased them. We did not catch them, but we found their equipment.
“There are other security measures by the company that are in place to guard and monitor the areas from cable theft, and also when explosions occur. We are able to alert the ward councillor to call the relevant people to fix it,” said the officer.
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Ward Clr Henry Buitendacht inspects equipment used by electricians at one of the repair sites. Photo: Zamokuhle Ndawonde
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