Power outages have been affecting neighbouring communities of Mayville, Chesterville and Bonela for a couple of years now and residents have called on eThekwini Municipality to come up with a long-term plan to fix it.
On Friday, the Springfield Weekly Gazette met with some residents in the areas, who said they were left without electricity for over eight hours and most of them had to bath with cold water. Akhona Qwabe of Chesterville said in her street, Ziqubu Road, a few houses have this problem and feels that the outages are a result of over-population on the streets. “Most of the homes here in Chesterville are in the accommodation rental business. One yard has more than 10 residents and I feel that the power system is overwhelmed as it was designed to supply a number of households and not 10 in each yard.”
Qwabe said most people live in Chesterville to be closer to work. “Water cuts are also an issue, yet we are so close to Umngeni Water. EThekwini should really come up with solutions as they are the ones who approve these building plans in the area, knowing that their system can only supply so much water and electricity,” she added. A resident living on Tait Place in Bonela said they have experienced similar problems. “On Friday from 7pm up until Saturday 3.30pm, we had no lights. The day before I saw some men from the informal settlement interfering with the power cable and the power kept going on and off. On Saturday after it was restored as I was going to fetch my wife, these guys were on a ladder reconnecting the shacks,” said the furious resident who did not want to be named.
Ward 30 Councillor, Warren Burne, confirmed that he was aware of the continuous outages and shortcomings in his ward which covers Bonela and Mayville. “There are some shortcomings which have been identified in the electricity network. A substation in Wiggins Road is located in an unfavourable area and needs to be relocated. The other feed, on the other side of Bonella is on Buckingham and Lall roads, also needs to be repaired,” said Cllr Burne. He said that the municipality has its hands tied, especially with the increasing informal dwellings in the areas. EThekwini Municipality spokesperson said: “All faults received from areas mentioned are usually attended to timely. Outages in these areas are never attributed to the Mayville Major as it is fairly stable but some outages can be owed to trips from distributor sub-stations while some can be network faults as there are overhead lines in the vicinity. The Municipality is constantly doing maintenance work in efforts to curb frequent outages in these areas.” Mayisela added that residents are reminded to report all electricity issues to the Electricity’s call centre on 080 1313-111, or sms 083-700-0819 or email custocare@ elec.durban.gov.za.”
