Three-day outage blow to Ezibeleni

THE three-day power outage in Ezibeleni from Thursday to Saturday afternoon was the result of a natural disaster which the municipality could not avoid, communications manager Fundile Feketshane said.

Feketshane was responding to queries sent by The Rep following a number of calls and complaints posted on Facebook.

When The Rep called the control room last Friday it was referred to the technical services directorate where a woman, who did not give her name, said two cables had exploded and that the municipality was waiting for an East London company to repair them.

Monwabisi Modi’s Facebook post asked Enoch Mgijima Municipality what was happening with the power in Ezibeleni.

Modi also lamented a lack of communication with residents.

Economic Freedom Fighters MP Zolile Xalisa said Ezibeleni people needed to fight the mediocre services provided by the municipality.

On Friday evening, a loud speaker was used during a drive through Ezibeleni to inform residents about the outage.

Feketshane said the cause of the outage was the result of damage to the electrical feeder by lightning.

“We dispatched our officials to conduct a loud hailing [sic] and also communicated through the Vukani Community Radio and [our] Facebook page.”

He said the local authority published notices when there were planned outages. This included distributing flyers to ensure precautionary measures were taken to protect electrical appliances and preserve food.

“Unfortunately this one [the latest outage] was a natural one which could not be averted.”