Eskom has launched a probe into the power disruption that left Bedfordview without electricity for three days this week.
Eskom generally responds to power cuts in this way, particularly where the disruption was as great as that in Bedfordview, said national spokesperson Fani Zulu.
The investigation will take the form of a technical audit, he said, describing it as a “post-mortem”.
Electricity to the East Rand town went down at 3am on Monday. It was restored late on Wednesday night.
While Zulu maintained that installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras along the R24 was to blame for the disruption, he conceded it was only partly responsible.
He said there are two energy lines to the Ekurhuleni municipality that feed, among others, Bedfordview. Only one line has to be working at any time to ensure the area has enough power.
The first oil-filled cable, along the R24, was knocked out of action in February while communication cables were being laid for the CCTV operation. Zulu said technicians mounting the cameras had drilled too deeply into the ground and damaged the Eskom cable buried 1,5m down, under a concrete slab.
Although repair teams started work on the cable at the time, they were diverted to other areas with more pressing problems.
“It is not as if the cable was lying there without being fixed,” he said.
The power problem arose when the second line went down as a result of “wear and tear”, which caused the failure of a transition joint between a gas-filled cable and an oil-filled cable. Zulu said the 7,5km cable had been in the ground since 1978 without incident.
The probe will try to determine whether “things could have been done better”. Should the investigation suggest corrective measures, these will be implemented, he said.
As things stand, only one of the cables is operational — the oil-filled cable. “Work is continuing to fix the second cable … It’s the oil and gas one we’re trying to sort out,” Zulu said.
Meanwhile, Gauteng’s public transport, roads and works department has denied that the CCTV installation had anything to do with the power outage this week. The allegation is “completely unfounded”, it said in a statement on Thursday.
The CCTV project is still in its planning and design phase and there is at present “no such physical work or installation being done on the R24”.
A similar project piloted on sections of the M1, M2 and N3 in the past 12 months is powered by diesel generators and not in any way connected to the Eskom grid, it added.
The power cut is thought to have cost Bedfordview businesses — including the major shopping centre Eastgate and several restaurants — millions in lost turnover and perished goods.
Resident Lolly Jackson, the owner of Teazers, has threatened legal action, claiming his aquarium fish and pond koi were dying.
“If you don’t pay your water and lights they send you a summons, so I reckon what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” he said, adding that Eskom would be better named “Eishkom”.
“It’s had quite an enormous effect on us. It’s affecting the security back-up systems. The food is going to waste,” said another resident, Fernando Patrizi.
Beeld reported on Thursday that construction firm Murray & Roberts, whose headquarters are in Bedfordview, had lost “hundreds of millions of rands” as it could not communicate with international clients or carry out month-end banking transactions.