CONCERNED KwaDukuza mayor, Ricardo Mthembu has expressed grave unhappiness over the recent spate of power outages.
‘While most shut-downs have been planned by Eskom, the unexpected blackout which brought the town to its knees on Monday was as a result of a botched operation that went totally wrong’, said Mthembu.
The main 33KV line which supplies electricity to the CBD was damaged by wild-fire at a sugar cane field at the point of supply Monday morning.
Mayor Mthembu said the KwaDukuza Technical Team had worked to restore power into the town as quickly as possible.
Acting Executive Director for Technical Services, Siyabonga Khanyile, said a couple of poles were burned down by sugar cane fires which resulted in some damage to infrastructure, ultimately resulting in power outages.
In a separate incident, a planned shutdown by Eskom went wrong in Ballito and surrounding areas at the weekend.
The shutdown planned for 1am to 3am exceeded this period.
The municipality is still investigating this matter.
‘We had a planned shutdown that was scheduled by Eskom at Shakaskraal sub-station point of supply for replacing a transformer.
‘The shutdown was scheduled to take place in the wee hours to minimise disruption for consumers, but for some reason things did not work out as planned,’ said Khanyile.
