By: Natasha Archary
It’s now 32-hours that residents of Roodepoort have gone without power, as City Power claims vandalism and cable theft at the Florida North substation is the reason.
Residents in Bergbron, Delarey, Florida, Maraisburg, Industria North, Whiteridge, and Northcliff Ext.9 have gone without power from midnight on 26 October.
On Thursday, City Power updated residents at noon that material for the repairs were ordered and repairs would commence shortly afterwards.
However, at 19h00, the utility said teams are still working on fixing the “senseless vandalism” on Florida North substation and other interlinked substations.
But this isn’t the first time that Roodepoort has face extensive power outages due to alleged cable theft, which begs the question why security isn’t heightened at the area’s substation.
According to City Power, cable thieves targeted the substation during loadshedding and vandalised as well as stole cables.
Initially, City Power has assured residents of Roodepoort that power will be restored by 12h00 on Friday, 28 October.
However, Roodepoort will it seems go another day without power as the utility has once again made excuses for the repairs, saying work would only be complete at 19h00 on Friday.
This does little to alleviate the burden on businesses and households who are already buckling under the constraints of incessant loadshedding.
“What happens to all the frozen food that we’ve bought for the month? We have to replace everything at our cost, like food isn’t already expensive enough.
This is ridiculous, as if loadshedding wasn’t annoying enough, on top of that we have to go days with no power. Do they even care about how people must cook for their families? No hot water, and it’s not the first time. Every month, this happens and we get the same excuse, cable theft.”
“Is there no contingency plan, to prevent this from happening every month? Or limit the number of hours people go without power? Don’t they have supplies stored in the event this happens? It’s always the same excuses and residents being given the run around for days.”
Disgruntled residents go days without power
Also read: Rape charges against 14 suspects of Krugersdorp gang rape withdrawn
