Pretoria - The preliminary assessment on a pylon that collapsed on Sunday evening in Pretoria east and plunged large parts of the capital into darkness suggested that there was tampering.
This was said yesterday by Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa during a site visit to the damaged infrastructure.
Prior to his visit, he had interaction with Tshwane Executive Mayor Cilliers Brink, in which it was suggested that a conditional assessment was needed on all other pylon infrastructure that could be vulnerable to vandalism.
In the short-term, something would have to be done to protect assets and ensure that communities were safe, especially in townships where crime was rife, Ramokgopa said. Security assessments would ensure communities and assets were protected, he added.
Ramokgopa also promised to elevate issues related to criminality to Police Minister Bheki Cele to “see what they can do to assist the municipality”.
“The City is doing everything possible to protect what they can within their jurisdiction with the limited resources.”
The protection of electricity infrastructure has always been the primary preoccupation of the government, he said.
Regarding the causes of the collapse he said: “Once we have concluded our investigation we will have a conclusive understanding of the causes. Just preliminary assessment will suggest that there was tampering with the infrastructure.”
Brink said work was under way to try to restore as power supply to residents and businesses.
“Restoration is only going to happen once we have repaired this damage.”
He was reluctant to commit to a deadline for repairing the damage, saying the focus was to finish the work as soon as possible.
“Eskom is assisting us with the sourcing of the monopoles. But we are also speaking to the monopole manufacturer. The focus is to complete the work as soon as possible,” Brink said.
Initially discussions centred on using monopoles as a temporary structure, he said. “But the monopoles, which are being discussed, can be a permanent solution because as opposed to pylons monopoles don’t offer value when being vandalised or stripped. They are not as vulnerable to vandalism,” Brink said.
He expressed concern that local businesses were hard hit by the unavailability of power supply.
“We will speak to Ford and Waltloo and affected businesses but the important point is that the whole communication goes to the whole of Tshwane,” he said.
Mamelodi resident Ezekiel Masemola expressed frustration yesterday as he was preparing to throw away his spoilt food stored inside a fridge after it had gone off due to the power outage that hit large parts of Tshwane on Sunday evening.
Meat, yoghurt, milk, vegetables and polony were among the groceries destined for rubbish bins after the power went off.
Masemola said he had accepted that what happened was an accident, but he was worried that he had lost so much money on the food.
“All the food I stored in the fridge smells because of the lack of power. I have not yet thrown them away, but we noticed this morning when we opened the fridge that it was rotten.”
He said he was not planning to claim for damages from the City of Tshwane because “my previous experience with the City was that refunds took too long to be processed, and at times, they were not processed at all”.
The township was among many areas in the metro that were plunged into darkness after the pylons along the N4 east freeway between Solomon Mahlangu and Simon Vermooten roads collapsed and severely damaged at least seven power line structures.
Other residents bemoaned the fact that they would be forced to dig deeper into their pockets to buy new groceries.
The situation had cost them much of their refrigerated food, which spoilt during the power outage.
They expressed disappointment that they had to throw away most of their food.
Many residents told the Pretoria News that they would like the City to be held liable for damages done to their monthly groceries, worth thousands of rand.
Some wanted the City to refund them for the money that went to waste buying the food.
Power went off on Sunday evening, and the City was still grappling with restoring it yesterday.
Millicent Huma was worried that they might soon run out of bread if the problem was not fixed urgently.
Huma, an employee at Mams Mall, said many bakers were unable to bake enough bread for residents because they depended on electric stoves to work.
She said there was a commotion on Monday at a hyper supermarket when customers were fighting to buy bread.
There were also fears that workers at the malls might lose their jobs as many shops decided to close because of the power shortages.
Huma said: “Shoprite didn’t open on Monday, including KFC and many other shops. That has caused fears among many workers like myself that we might lose our jobs.”
She estimated that at the hyper supermarket where she worked, the owners spent close to R30 000 to purchase diesel used on generators for powering fridges.
“They are losing a lot of money on generators. We also rely on power for cooking food,” she said.
Praise Molemo, who operates a small business selling kota (bunny chow) in Nellmapius, was struggling to get bread from bakers at local malls because they relied on electricity for baking.
A large quantity of her stock, which includes polony, ham, cheese and Russian sausages, has gone off because there was no power to turn on her refrigerator.
“We are badly affected by the lack of power. All our stock is rotten. We don’t know how many days we are going to last without power. There is no power in Denneboom where I get bread supply.”
She was forced to fall back on using a gas canister stove for frying chips.
Pretoria News