The residents of Alberton have been left angry and frustrated with the City of Ekurhuleni due to all the recent power outages.
This is evident through the countless emails sent to the head of department for energy, Mark Wilson, as well as a number of petitions which will be submitted to Council seeking an explanation for the frequent power outages that have become commonplace in Alberton.
Particularly at risk are the most vulnerable members of society, such as the elderly who rely on oxygen and those families with babies who suffer distress in the winter cold without any electricity to power heaters.
Just to mention the latest disasters:
A power interruption on March 19 affected large parts of Alberton North, Southcrest, Florentia, Verwoerd Park, Newmarket Park, Alrode and surrounding areas. This was caused by cables damaged by a roads department contractor. This fault, in turn, caused the Eskom supply to trip. This delayed restoration time as Eskom had to do a number of tests before they could restore supply.
Over the Easter weekend, power was out for three days due to cable faults.
On April 26, there was no power in Alrode until April 28 due to cable faults which entailed digging up in an area in order to find fault. This was restored by 8pm.
On April 27 and 28, disaster struck when a 33kv cable behind Newmarket Mall was damaged by contractors digging for the new hospital development and a large area of Raceview, Alberante, Randhart, General Alberts Park, Newmarket and Florentia were with no power. Unfortunately, due to the waterlogged area, the TLB trying to find the cable got stuck in the mud. This outage lasted the whole weekend.
On May 16, a cable fault left Randhart and Alberante out from 4am until the evening.
Multiple cable faults from late on May 24 until May 25 at 8pm affected Randhart and Alberante.
On June 3, again electricity in a large area of Randhart, Raceview and Alberante went off at about 6pm and electricity was restored by 11pm.
Street lights are also a bone of contention. That department seems not to be able to keep up with all the outages and our WhatsApp groups are inundated with requests.
Many people were involved during these outages, but thanks must go to the technicians who worked tirelessly around the clock in the rain and mud to restore power.
We regard these outages as a crisis and a severe failure in service delivery. Access to electricity is a basic right, which is being ignored by the City of Ekurhuleni, meaning the residents of Alberton suffer.
We will continue to do all we can and apply pressure on the City of Ekurhuleni to ensure a consistent power supply to the area.
Alderman Bruna Haipel
For free daily local news in the south, visit our sister newspapers Alberton Record, Comaro Chronicle, Southern Courier and Get it Joburg South Magazine.
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