Central SA
Electricity restored to most parts of Harrismith─── 10:55 Mon, 19 Sep 2022
Electricity has been restored to most areas of Harrismith in the Eastern Free State.
The HIT (Harrismith, Intabaxwe and Tshiame) Residents Association's chairperson, Willem König, tells OFM News that although they experienced the municipality’s response to the outage as delayed, they are relieved that on Sunday 18 September 2022 their lights were back on.
ALSO READ: More light on Harrismith electricity crisis
After the town was left without power supply for a week, repairs were done and power was restored briefly on Monday 12 September 2022.
However, according to a statement from the Maluti-a-Phofung municipality, the Wilge Park side of the substation suffered damage about two hours after it was switched on again.
On Thursday 15 September 2022, municipal spokesperson, Thabo Kessah, mentioned in a media statement that work would start that day at 10:00, after a service provider was procured to effect repairs.
ALSO READ: Harrismith businesses affected by power outage
König expressed hope that there won’t be another power outage due to faulty infrastructure, as the municipality has installed new equipment.
“The electricity was restored just after 14:00 yesterday [Sunday] afternoon, there are some areas that still need to be restored. They have found some faults on some lines, which they will be looking into today and hopefully, the rest of the town will be restored as well.”
However, König says the fact that stage six load-shedding has also been implemented by Eskom, might be an additional factor in determining whether businesses affected by this electricity crisis will re-open on Monday.
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Meanwhile, acting Municipal Manager, Bassie Ungerer, mentioned in a media statement that he has “decided to borrow” four breakers from a service provider to enable power to be restored.
“All the new panels are installed and tested. They are now busy with the protection settings and testing of cables. Once the four panels arrive, then the same procedure will apply.”
He further urged residents to use electricity sparingly as the temperature is expected to drop to 9 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.
“We will restore electricity in phases to avoid overload. If a fault occurs, then such fault will be isolated and repaired on Monday,” Ungerer concluded.
