It's grim in blackout Jozi

A Johannesburg resident had to abandon her home and find temporary accommodation after a major power outage hit the city centre a week ago.

"It's been a week since I left my place; I had to find a temporary place in Brixton. I spend more on transport now because it's far as compared to my place in town," said Chriselda Kekana, who is one of hundreds of Johannes- burg residents left without power for more than a week.

"This is such an inconvenience. If it was just electricity then I would have made it, but I can't survive not having water too," said Kekana, who lived on Pritchard Street.

Large sections of the Johannesburg inner city were plunged into darkness on Sunday last week because of a fire in an underground tunnel caused by cable thieves.

Some shops have closed their doors while others operate with generators.

"It's bad," property management agent Mike Josiah told The Times. "Some people don't even go to work. Most of them had to find other places to stay in. People are unhappy - there is no water, no electricity.

"Nothing is being communicated with us. We don't know when things will get back to normal,"

Vusi Vilakazi, manager of a clothing store on Smal Street, said there had been an increase in crime since the start of the power outage.

His shop uses 30 litres of petrol a day to run its generator.

 "The business had to hire an extra security guard because thieves are taking advantage of the lights being out," he said.

ATMs in the CBD are not working, keeping shoppers away.

 MD Ismail, owner of a supermarket in the CBD, told The Times that he lost R28,000 because he had to dump fish that he could not keep refrigerated.

City Power spokesman Sol Masolo said the outage was caused by an attempted cable theft in underground reticulation tunnels.

He said power would be restored by Tuesday morning.

"At the present moment we are testing all the newly installed equipment and cables.
This must be done before there can be a switch-on."