Thunderstorm causes power outages across Tshwane, city responding

The City of Tshwane has confirmed severe thunderstorms have damaged parts of the city and caused power supply interruptions.

Technicians have been dispatched to attend to outages, the city said.

City spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the storms uprooted trees and caused tree branches to fall on roads and overhead power lines, causing power trips which resulted in prolonged blackouts in and around Tshwane.

“As of this morning, technicians have been overstretched due to the size of the network they cover and the number of outages experienced, resulting in a huge restoration backlog. The backlog is worsened by the need to prioritise the safety of our technicians, who are not allowed to work on the network in wet and rainy conditions,” Mashigo said.

He said members of the mayoral committee have been deployed across the city to assess the damage caused by the storms to ensure assistance is provided where needed.

“The MMCs will, inter alia, inspect homes that have suffered significant damage, including roofs that were removed by strong winds during yesterday's storm. The city is committed to accelerating power restoration to frustrated customers and appeals for patience while technicians strive to reduce the backlog.”

Mashigo said residents will be kept abreast on developments. “The City of Tshwane apologises for the inconvenience caused,” he said.

The ANC in Tshwane said the outages, which have caused immense disruption to the lives of residents, are perceived to be the result of an orchestrated plot aimed at undermining the efforts of the newly formed ANC government of local unity.

“We are gravely concerned this sabotage may either be driven by rogue elements within the city's official structures or a coordinated cabal of right-wing racist elements with ill intent to not only undermine the woman mayorship of Dr Nasiphi Moya, but also to destabilise and erode confidence in the new administration,” said George Matjila, regional secretary ANC Greater Tshwane.

“Notably, the ongoing power outages surfaced not long after the removal of Cilliers Brink as mayor, which suspiciously makes it to be an orchestrated coincidence of a design by those who are hell-bent to disrupt service delivery to the residents of Tshwane in favour of their narrow selfish political interest.”

Matjila said the actions are deliberate and clearly intended to derail collective efforts to restore stability, improve service delivery and meet the needs of the people of Tshwane.

“We urge all responsible officials within the city to put the interests of the residents first and to uphold their professional duties without compromise. The ANC remains committed to ensuring accountability and transparency, and we call on relevant law enforcement and oversight bodies to swiftly investigate the source of the outages and take necessary action against those responsible.”

TimesLIVE