After nearly 40 days without electricity, the lights are back on at an international manufacturer based in Roodepoort, Johannesburg, bringing relief to employees who faced retrenchments.
Welding Alloys South Africa had been without power from May 9 after a transformer inside City Power’s Timber Street switching station was vandalised.
Last week, TimesLIVE reported City Power had failed to replace the transformer due to stock issues which lasted more than a month. This put 100 factory jobs at risk.
The state-owned power utility on Saturday replaced the equipment and restored power to the manufacturer.
MD Ferdi Luus told TimesLIVE that the restoration of power was a relief for the business and employees.
He said the company would no longer retrench staff to save money.
A receipt for diesel costs, seen by TimesLIVE, showed the company spent R346,000 on a generator from May until June 17.
Luus said if the business went a second month without power there would be retrenchments as the outage had put the factory under cash-flow pressure.
“We are relieved. This has made a major difference to our lives. There is a new energy in the workshop as well. I think everyone was getting a bit worried.
“At least we do not have to dig deep into our savings any more and hopefully we can generate more money in the next couple of months to recover,” Luus said.
The power utility changed the position of the equipment after the transformer was vandalised beyond repair when criminals gained entry to a door facing the street.
“The mini substation is an enclosed field box standing inside our yard, but its steel doors faced the street and had a simple padlock. The criminals broke the padlock and had easy access to the equipment,” Luus said.
“Now they have put the equipment on the substation wall facing the factory yard for safety reasons.
“We have people patrolling our premises at night. The equipment still belongs to City Power, it is not mine, but I am happy to share the burden of trying to protect it.”
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena told TimesLIVE the utility spend R700,000 in repairs to restore power for the factory.
“We regret that Wasa [factory] was without power supply after their transformer was vandalised early in May. After operators assessed the situation and gave feedback, team leaders immediately placed an order for a replacement 630 mva transformer.
“Unfortunately, this particular size was not available at any of the City Power stores. After repeated attempts to secure a transformer, management took a decision to rework cabling and install a 630 mva mini substation valued at about R700 000 instead.
“Today [Tuesday], Wasa is operating as normal but we would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused and the long turnaround time to resolve the power outage they experienced,” Mangena said.
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