Power failures are nothing new to Germiston residents.<\/p>\n
On Friday, several areas were left without power for most of the day as metro technicians installed a new circuit breaker at the Germiston North Substation.<\/p>
Residents from other areas, such as Lambton, Tedstoneville, Primrose, Marlands, the Germiston CBD and Elspark, have contacted the GCN on countless occasions in a desperate attempt to find out what is happening.<\/p>\n
The GCN has contacted the metro each time a power outage has been reported, but often receives no comment.<\/p>
In the latest comment from the metro, spokesman Themba Gadebe said: \u201cIn the past three months we have experienced in excess of 15 outages in Germiston, many around the Tedstoneville, Lambton and Elsburg area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese outages are caused mostly by third party interference.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterference includes attempted theft, theft and vandalism of metro equipment such as cables and mini-substations.<\/p>\n
\u201cOthers outages were caused by normal wear and tear of electrical equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained that these damages, thefts and vandalism can result in prolonged outages, as the damaged or stolen equipment needs to be replaced and\/or repaired.<\/p>\n
Asked what steps the metro is taking to ensure that these power outages stop, Gadebe said: \u201cOn Friday, the metro carried out planned maintenance, which will assist in normalising the electrical network damaged in the past three months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will reduce the number of erroneous outages, however, this will not prevent third party interference.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo combat third party interference we have placed guards at the substations where we experience severe theft.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have also replaced copper cables with aluminium cables where there are repeated thefts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other articles you may be interested in:<\/strong><\/p>\n Reporting metro complaints to the GCN<\/a><\/p>\n Road still a mess<\/a><\/p>\n