'R270 well spent': Ekurhuleni woman's power restored after she buys part herself

It's a story with a happy ending for a resident of Primrose in Ekurhuleni who allegedly spent 18 days without electricity after a circuit breaker supplying her home tripped.

Her electricity was only restored after she allegedly asked technicians at the City of Ekurhuleni's energy department if she could buy the circuit breaker herself for her power to be restored.

She spent R270 on a circuit breaker and it took technicians about five minutes to replace the faulty breaker.

The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of victimisation, tells a story of frustration and anger at not receiving assistance from the municipality when she reported the fault. 

She initially logged a call through a call centre after losing power to her home. She said technicians visited the site of the fault three times. 

At first, they switched on the circuit breaker and her electricity was restored, but two hours later it tripped again. She repeatedly called the call centre, reporting it had tripped again.

“You wait for a phone to be answered and when you finally get hold of them, they sound shocked that you spent so long without electricity. Then they take down your details and tell you they will escalate it and then you don't hear anything,” she said.

“They are also rude to you and say someone will call you and no-one calls.”

This past week residents from Primrose and Germiston told TimesLIVE Premium about their struggles of spending weeks without electricity because of substations that blow up, overloading and cable theft.

The outages allegedly take the municipality a week or two to repair, despite the promised 48-hour turnaround response.

After repeatedly calling the call centre without assistance, the woman visited the centre last week. She alleges she was told she wasn't allowed to be there but she demanded help until they told her the circuit breaker was faulty and they didn't have stock.

After being sent from pillar to post, she decided she would “buy it herself”.

“[On Thursday] when I went to their offices [service centre], I spoke to the lady and she didn't want to help me. I had to speak to the supervisor, who referred me to someone who told me he would follow up. I said, how do I know someone will come? And he said he didn't know, but someone would come.”

She asked if she could buy the part herself and was told it wasn't allowed.

In desperation, she went to the depot and asked how else she could resolve her problem. An official allegedly told her if she was willing to pay for the breaker, technicians would repair and restore her electricity.  

“I asked, 'Can I buy it? Give me the information.' I got that, bought it and called them [at the depot] and not an hour later they came and installed it. That's how it is going because if I didn't do it I would be without power until when?”  

City of Ekurhuleni spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said the incident was unusual. He cautioned municipal bylaws and regulations prohibited customers from buying such electrical parts. 

“That needs to be investigated. What if the part [circuit breaker] is booked in the system and matches that and is needed by the system? It is a careless thing that happened and it needs to be looked at,” he said. 

Spending 18 days without power was not the norm, added Dlamini. When customers logged a call to their call centre, a team was dispatched to respond to the reported issue. Customers were issued with a reference number.

Dlamini encouraged residents to escalate their issues to their ward councillors and visit their walk-in customer centres for assistance. 

TimesLIVE