Africa-Press – South-Africa. Large parts of Komani in the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality are without electricity after suspected saboteurs allegedly blew up a substation on Friday morning.
The municipality said while it had not yet established the real cause of the fire, it did not rule out sabotage.
Municipal spokesperson Lonwabo Kowa said a crisis committee would convene to decide on many issues, including the possibility of opening a criminal case, depending on the evidence.
eThekwini municipal workers accused of blowing up electricity transformers
The 20 MVA substation transformer, situated west of the town, caught fire before 07:00 on Friday, leaving many areas with no electricity.
“A municipal crisis committee has been established and is working around the clock to devise means of restoring electricity in the quickest possible time for all affected areas,” said Kowa in a statement.
“The 20 MVA substation transformer was burnt down and the cause of fire is not yet known. An investigation will be undertaken.”
He added the municipality was in negotiations with various organisations to source transformers on either a temporary or permanent basis.
Kowa said only few residential areas have been affected by the power outage.
Historic Komani Town Hall gutted in overnight inferno
The DA said the electricity was only restored to eKomani on Thursday after an outage of six days.
Three weeks ago, the party added, Sterkstroom had no electricity for 13 consecutive days, and two weeks ago large parts of eKomani and Ezibeleni had no electricity for eight consecutive days.
Enoch Mgijima DA constituency leader and MPL Jane Cowley said the electrical outages, which she added had become a daily occurrence in Komani, were largely as a result of a decades-long lack of maintenance.
Cowley added she would write to the national administrator running the municipality to urgently request that funds be made available to build up a stockpile of necessary equipment and cabling so that repairs could be made immediately.
She said the upgrading of the entire electricity network in the municipality must be prioritised.
Cowley added a lot of people in the municipality had lost their jobs due to ongoing electrical outages, which have wreaked havoc on the local economy, which added to the job-loss bloodbath in the Eastern Cape.
“The Enoch Mgijima Municipality technical department continues to try to repair blown cables, but there are no cables in stock, so these must be sourced from elsewhere,” she said.
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