‘Even Trump holding a press conference won’t speed up restoration’: Tshwane residents go 13 days without power
'We have children writing matric who have to study in candlelight. Residents are throwing away food and spending thousands on petrol for generators'
Residents of Meyerspark in Pretoria East have been without power for 13 days, with no end in sight. The cause of the outage was a large fire at the Watloo substation, which damaged cables at the Njala substation. While power has been restored in many areas, a few neighborhoods remain in the dark due to multiple open-circuit MV cable faults.
DA councillor Ben Chapman stated that the pace of restoration is not accelerated even if President Trump held a press conference in Meyerspark. The issue lies in the power surge that hit Meyerspark, causing extensive damage to the wiring. Each cable replacement takes about five hours, and some cables have multiple faults. Despite the efforts of the Tshwane team, vandals have interfered with repairs on one side of the ward.
Children are struggling to study in candlelight, and residents are spending thousands of rands on generators. The City of Tshwane has identified that only one of the initial 47 affected medium-voltage units remains without power, but locating and repairing the remaining faults is taking time. A suspect was arrested for cable theft, tampering with municipal infrastructure, and trespassing.
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