Ward 13 spends the weekend in darkness

by Cllr. Ilaria Di Siena — DA PR Councillor in Ekurhuleni

Date: 20 May 2021

Release: Immediate

Type: Media Statement

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Ekurhuleni strongly condemns the regular power outages plaguing residents and businesses of the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE).

Ward 13, Kempton Park was again without power for most of this past weekend. Parts of Birch Acres went off at 22h30 on 16 May 2021 and the first communication from the CoE was at 07h30 the next day.

On 17 May at 07h35, the CoE tweeted, “CoE is aware of power failure affecting parts of Kempton Park. Our technical team is on site attending to the outage. No turn around time provided” nine hours after the outage, yet the CoE could not provide any meaningful information to the residents.

The power outages are a result of the perennial cable theft and the vandalism of property with the ANC Coalition-led* CoE doing little to secure the and/maintain the energy infrastructure and power lines now in a state of collapse.

The DA shares the anger and frustration of the residents and businesses of Ward 13 Ekurhuleni as they continue to endure recurring power outages for prolonged periods of time with no reasonable or consistent turnaround times.

The dismal failure to keep the lights on highlights the incompetence of the ANC-metro and the DA will continue to force the uncaring ANC-government to rectify this matter.

Under a DA-led government, residents can expect an administration that ensures that the existing infrastructure is well maintained and that adequate and efficient communication is made available in case of emergencies.

#TimeForChange

*Coalition Partners: African Independent Congress (AIC), Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Independent Ratepayers Association of South Africa (IRASA)

Cllr. Ilaria Di Siena

DA PR Councillor in Ekurhuleni