Electricity Restored in Umkomaas After 3-Day Power Outage

Eskom confirmed that electricity had been restored in the Craigieburn, Umkomaas area on Wednesday afternoon.

The media desk said the 72-hour power ended at around 15:30 pm.

The power giant cited stolen cables as the reason for the blackout since Sunday.

“While they were busy working on one of the networks, the thieves struck and stole from other two networks. They then had to restore supply by replacing the stolen cables from those two networks which caused further delays,” the media desk said.

As part of the solution Eskom said they were replacing copper with aluminium cable which is “far less attractive to the thieves.”

Eskom confirmed that their security team started patrolling the area as off Monday and that the cable theft was reported to SAPS.

On Wednesday, IFP Chief Whip in Parliament Narend Singh MP, said he had written a letter to both Pravin Gordhan, Public Enterprises Minister and Police Minister Bheki Cele calling for immediate intervention.

Singh said he had received feedback acknowledging receipt of the letter saying that a report would ready in 24 hours.

One of the residents who declined to be named said it was ridiculous that they were without lights and water for so many days.

“Thankfully we have gas stoves. Most of our fridge items had to be thrown away.”

She said their alarms were also not working which left them more vulnerable to criminals.

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