Residents of the Mthatha suburb of Southernwood are fuming after spending the Easter weekend without electricity in their homes.
Power had still not been restored by Wednesday.
They have blasted King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality bosses, accusing them of lacking respect for ratepayers who contribute to the council’s coffers.
But municipal spokesperson Sonwabo Mampoza has blamed the prolonged power outage on a mini-substation that had been tampered with, causing it to explode.
On Wednesday, residents said they had been without power for five days.
“What is worse, we did not get any notice sent to us about the problem,” Mthatha Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association spokesperson Madyibi Ngxekana said.
“I’ve been trying to follow up to understand the cause of the outage and left text messages for the municipality’s directors, but no-one has bothered to respond.
“At this point, we have no clue why we do not have electricity in our area.”
Ngxekana has been the ratepayer association’s lone councillor in the KSD council after winning a seat in the 2021 local government elections.
There is just no respect being shown to us though we contribute about 75% of the municipality’s revenue every year
He said he and his neighbours had been without electricity since early on Saturday.
“This is very unfair. When there is a water problem at the OR Tambo District Municipality, they issue a notice to alert us.
“They have our contact details as community leaders.
“Recently when there was a disaster and I complained about areas that did not have electricity, I was told we were not a priority.
“I have to keep medication in the fridge at all times.
“It seems they just don’t care about us ratepayers at all.
“There is just no respect being shown to us though we contribute about 75% of the municipality’s revenue every year.”
Fellow Southernwood resident Saziso Tyali said: “This is the longest period we have not had electricity.
“Our food is rotting and people are throwing it away.
“We do not even know why there’s no power here.
“The only conclusion we can draw is that maybe we just don’t matter to them.”
A social media post on Sunday said: “A mini sub[station] that exploded in Southernwood at Ukhozi street has plunged the whole area into darkness.
“It’s suspected to have been tampered with or burnt.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Mampoza apologised on behalf of the municipality for the inconvenience caused by the outage.
“The municipality is aware of power failures at Southernwood and other surrounding areas,” Mampoza said.
“After we noticed the power outage, technicians traced the cause to a T3 unit that was burnt by unknown people.
“We suspect such sabotage was done by an individual or syndicate aiming to sabotage the KSD municipality infrastructure.
“Right now, technicians are still working around the clock trying to restore the power supply.
“We urge ratepayers and the community at large to assist by reporting any individuals or people suspected of tampering with infrastructure to our call centre, which operates 24/7.”
UDM KSD councillor Raymond Knock said the municipality faced many challenges when it came to providing power to residents.
These included an ageing electricity supply network, unprecedented levels of vandalism of municipal electricity infrastructure in the past few years, including the torching of kiosks, transformers and mini-substations, and cable theft.
“We were getting reports of people being caught in the act and being arrested for vandalising or stealing infrastructure,” Knock said.
“It is difficult to ascertain the truth because now we’ve been told of a new form of vandalism, which is more professional.
“The infrastructure is not set on fire, but people with the knowledge of how electricity works will go into a substation and deliberately tamper with the wires, causing the substation to explode.”
Knock said they had been told of at least two mini-substations that had exploded after allegedly being tampered with over the weekend.
But he also attributed the electricity challenges to a lack of capacity among the municipality’s own electricians.
He had unsuccessfully requested background information on the 15 electricians employed by KSD to assess if they were sufficiently qualified.
“They are supposed to be qualified but the municipality is still using the services of three external companies to do the same work as they do,” Knock said.
The Dispatch has seen a social media campaign started by KSD on Wednesday urging people to work with authorities to stop vandalism of electricity infrastructure.
The municipality called on residents to report suspicious activity near substations, transformers or power lines.
Earlier this year, KSD mayor Nyaniso Nelani said the municipality had spent more than R20m on repairing vandalised infrastructure.
Daily Dispatch
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