Businesses in parts of Ekurhuleni, the Free State and Northern Cape are counting losses running into millions of rands after power failures, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Tuesday.
Among others, a prolonged power failure has affected Eastgate Mall, one of South Africa’s largest shopping centres, in Bedfordview, east of Johannesburg. The area has been without electricity since 3am on Monday due to faults in two 132-kilovolt lines.
The Star reported on Wednesday that Bedfordview, Senderwood, Primrose, Gerdview, Sunnyridge, Dawnview and Germiston were affected.
Eastgate shopping-centre manager Errol Taylor said the power cuts have cost businesses millions.
“It has affected the businesses quite seriously because they have not been able to trade for the past two days, with the exception of our anchor tenants,” he said.
According to Eskom, the power cuts in the affected areas were caused by problems with underground cables.
“At 3am yesterday [Monday] we had an issue with one of our cable networks affecting mainly the Southgate shopping mall, as well as the residential areas within the Bedfordview suburbs. This was due to oil leaks, which we are busy fixing at the moment at this stage,” said Liu Maleka, Eskom general manager of the north-western regions.
“Due to the complexity of digging the roads and following through the routes, we are looking at another 10 hours to bring the supply back.”
Maleka had earlier said that the electricity supply to Bedfordview was only expected to be restored on Wednesday. “If all goes according to plan, we anticipate that power will be back by noon tomorrow [Wednesday],” he said.
Eskom could not comment on Wednesday morning. Officials were in a meeting discussing their response.
Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said complaints from the public had been streaming in to municipal officials on their cellphones as the municipality’s Bedfordview-based call-centre was also down. He had received at least 100 calls himself.
Although the problem was not on the municipality’s side, it was perceived as responsible in the eyes of the public, he said.
Ekurhuleni metro police on Wednesday appealed for calm on the area’s roads, but said so far it had managed to minimise road rage in the massive traffic jams created by an absence of traffic lights.
There had also not been any major incidents or accidents, said spokesperson Jimmy Maboko.
He said pointsmen were on duty, but only at major intersections, and he asked motorists to treat all intersections with traffic lights as four-way stops.