Community members from Vanderbjlpark and Bophelong (south of Johannesburg) gathered outside the Vanderbjlpark Substation, burning tires, saying “Voetsek! We want electricity!”. This was after a week of no electricity in the area.
Manager of the Emfuleni Local Municipality Communications Department (ELMCD), Stanley Gaba, said that electrical technicians are restoring power in Vanderbjlpark, Bophelong and Bophelong extensions. However, the community has not had electricity.
Gaba says although power has been restored to all these areas, some parts of Vanderbjlpark are still affected by the outage. This is because six of the panels which supply the two areas were damaged beyond repair by the fire caused by an exploded transformer.
“Restoring power to the remaining parts of Vanderbjlpark would regrettably take a bit longer due to the ongoing procurement processes and the availability of the stock replacement panels”, Gaba said. “The technicians are making positive progress in restoration efforts and the team is currently replacing the circuit breakers,” he said.
“The Municipality is pleading for patience from the community as the technicians are doing everything in their capacity to restore electricity to the area”, Gaba said. To date, the issue has not been resolved and the community is still struggling with endless power outages for long periods of time (sometimes 12hrs at a time).
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