Durban — Morningside residents have urged eThekwini Municipality to use their rates to fix the sub-stations that were affected by the recent vandalism and cable thefts which left the area without electricity.
A Morningside resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said the issue started on Saturday, February 11, when the power went out at 5pm.
“The fault was reported in Cunard Close at 5.15pm and only got restored at 10.38 the same night,” she said.
The resident said another lengthy outage occurred on Monday night and power returned only on Tuesday afternoon.
She added that: “A resident called the call centre at 5am and was told that a team will be appointed and was advised that no fault had been reported.”
The resident said there was a third outage in the week that took place at 3.59pm on Wednesday and a fellow resident went to the sub-station and discovered that the opening was still there and the fuses were stolen again. She said the power only returned at 12.59pm on Thursday.
She said municipal workers were failing to secure the opening, and the police had not increased their patrols.
Due to these cable thefts, she said, ratepayers were forced to roll up their sleeves and dig into their personal pockets for funding to secure a substation that has repeatedly been vandalised and stripped of fuses and copper wiring. The result of these thefts is that it leaves the residents in the dark for hours on end.
“This is a hopeless situation and on Wednesday, we learned that we are not the only sub-station in the community that has been hit repeatedly,” said the resident, adding that ratepayers had to cut back the foliage and secure the sub-station because the municipality was reluctant to do so.
“The criminal is watching the sub-station and will return today to steal these fuses again and sell them on the black market. He is also stealing from the Mitchell Park sub-station, the Percy Osborne sub-station and another in the Morningside area,” she said.
Ward 27 councillor Ernest Smith said vandals have targeted sub-stations in the area: Cunard, Jameson, Nimmo, Mitchell Park, and well as others in the ward.
“The City’s electricity department has been requested to do an inspection of the infrastructure in the area in order to systematically deal with the ones that have weaknesses in terms of security, as well as to try to curb the vandalism which affects the consumers and residents in the area,” he said.
Smith said he requested this of the municipality as a matter of urgency.
“At this time residents and businesses have opted to secure the sub-stations at their own cost, such as that on Cunard Close,” said Smith.
eThekwini Municipality spokesperson Lindiwe Khuzwayo said that the City was still trying to resolve the problem.
WhatsApp your views on this story to 071 485 7995
Daily News