Call on city to relocate infrastructure to avoid repeated cable theft

Prolonged power outages, some lasting longer than 36 hours in Pretoria North, have left residents angry and demanding answers from the City of Tshwane.

- Marizka Coetzer

Pretoria North resident Charlene van Staden said Riebeeck Street in Pretoria North needed serious attention.

“Every two weeks we are confronted by faults in that substation. Last weekend, we had 38 hours of no power,” she said.

Van Staden said it was totally unacceptable that ratepayers have to foot the bill for the city’s incompetence and still have no power. “Isn’t it time to get professional engineers to check out what the problem is?” she asked.

City of Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the outages were initially caused by a fault on a medium-voltage panel at the Van Riebeeck substation. Technicians responded swiftly and conducted preliminary work, including cleaning carbon deposits on affected equipment, Mashigo said.

“However, during switching attempts, an additional fault was discovered on a medium-voltage cable within the supply network, preventing full restoration of electricity,” he added.