Pretoria - Residents whose power supply was interrupted after the Mooikloof substation east of Pretoria was ravaged by fire last Wednesday have grown impatient with the City of Tshwane.
Some residents from affected areas told the City they were tired of updates about progress of the repairs and wanted to know when they would have electricity back.
The City said its technicians had been working tirelessly to repair the substation at the Mooikloof Estate amid heavy and consistent rain that interrupted and delayed the work.
Some residents blasted the City on social media and asked to be told when the work was done instead of the progress.
Tshwane spokesperson Hilgard Matthews said the team working on-site managed to clean the site, replace all 26 damaged panels, and successfully restored electricity supply to more than 1 500 residences and businesses.
Executive mayor Randall Williams visited the area to monitor progress and to hold a meeting with the staff and councillors about the repairs.
Resident, Mike Swanepoel said: “We are tired now. We have been waiting for electricity for some days now and our groceries have already expired. We just want to know when can we have the lights back.”
Resident, Douglas Ross said the City updated residents about the station but ignored everyone who asked when power would be restored.
Resident, Simon Smith said it was frustrating to be without power for a whole day because a lot of people worked from home.
The outage also affected traffic lights in some areas.
However, Matthews said yesterday significant progress had been made over the past 24 hours on the roofing and technical installations at the substation.
“The team finalised the steel structure of Room B yesterday afternoon and by this morning the roof was completed and this expedited the installation of various components," he said.
Matthews said milestones achieved overnight included the installation of 15 switchgear panels, a transformer panel and a bus coupler.
He said preparation of the 11kV cable re-routing was completed, as well as the removal of all redundant multi-core cables from trenches.
“Today, the team will forge ahead with the installation of more electrical components and concurrently purify the oil of the transformers,” he said.
The City said it was also aware of other outages in areas such as Equestria, Silver Lakes, Faerie Glen, Lombardy and Koedoeberg, and that teams were dispatched to attend to the problem.
Pretoria News