Residents of Mahikeng in the North West continue to be among the hardest hit by the ongoing electricity crisis.
The provincial capital has been subjected to longer power outages beyond the load-shedding schedule, after the Mimosa substation that supplies various areas caught fire two weeks ago.
The areas that include Golfview, Riviera Park, Mahikeng CBD, Danville, Majemantsho, Dihatshwane and Mosiane View have since been without electricity for 11 days as a result of the explosion.
The outage has affected the Mahikeng CBD and the industrial site among others resulting in some of the government institutions that include SASSA, sending back those who needed assistance, while crippled small businesses and worsened water supply problems in many parts of the area.
One of those who were sent back without getting assistance from SASSA was 77-year-old Dikeledi Mokalane who had challenges with receiving her pension fund.
“I’m tired of this government. Imagine I had to borrow money to come and sort out my pension fund payment challenges. But now I’m told there is no electricity. What I’m I supposed to do? I had to borrow money to come here today, only to realise that I came for nothing,” she exclaimed.
Jack Moshoeshoe expressed frustration after visiting SASSA offices twice and still not getting assisted.
“I came here twice already without getting any assistance. I was here last week, now they tell us that they will give us a different date. They are not taking into consideration the fact that most of us struggle to get transport fare to come here. I really don’t know what to do. I have not received my grant for four months now,” said Moshoeshoe.
SASSA’s spokesperson in the North West, Nthabiseng Mosieleng said services have since resumed, and those who were sent back will be prioritised.
“Services at the Mahikeng local office have resumed after there were disruptions caused by power outages experienced in some parts of the area, since last week. Our office has also been affected, however, we have been using an alternative supply in the form of a generator, which then ran out of diesel.
“The situation has been corrected and measures have been put in place to ensure that business will continue up until the power is restored. The clients who could not be assisted and were registered will be prioritised upon their visit to the office,” Mosieleng said.
Eskom’s North West Customer Relations Manager, Ezekiel Baruti said they have managed to restore power to some of the affected areas.
“The power was restored on Monday at 14h00. However, there are some parts that currently don’t have supply due to secondary vandalism and cable fault at Danville. This vandalism and cable theft happened during the prolonged outage.
“The other parts of Golview and Industrial site are still off due to technical faults that are being experienced when we tried to switch the power back on. The Eskom teams are working on the Danville vandalized mini-substation and the other team is working on the Golview and church hill technical issues,” said Baruti.
North West Premier, Bushy Maape in a statement said he was hopeful the electricity supply will be restored.
“Electricity should be restored in due course and we want to thank Eskom for all their efforts of working around the clock to restore electricity. We also want to thank the affected residents for their patience and understanding. We know that it was not easy and we hope their lives will go back to normality” Maape said.
