Johannesburg – Embattled power utility, Eskom, has said it is attending to supply interruptions affecting customers across Gauteng as a result of multiple network faults caused by network overloading, illegal connections, meter bypasses, cable theft, vandalism, and unauthorised operations on the electricity infrastructure.
Although most areas have power supply in Gauteng, some parts of Beverly Hills, Cosmo City, and Soweto are experiencing outages.
Eskom said it attends to issues as they are reported.
“In Soweto whilst most areas have supply, customers in Central Western Jabavu (CWJ), Jabavu, Moroka and Pimville are still affected and technicians are on site attending to these outages which are as a result of network theft and vandalism and are exacerbated by electricity theft with losses of 76% in Pimville and 79% in Jabavu,” Eskom said in a statement.
Eskom further said that purchasing of electricity from legal vendors in Soweto has increased slightly, but was still concerned over the numbers.
“Out of 162 529 prepaid customers only 40 192 are purchasing electricity tokens from legal vendors. Technicians have also been dispatched to address the Beverly Hills phases 1, 2 and 3 and extensions 5, 6, 7 and 10 in Cosmo City which are also affected by the outages,” Eskom further stated.
In Cosmo City, Eskom said, the outages are also as a result of electricity theft where in extension 5 as an example, out of 1441 prepaid customers, only 631 are purchasing electricity tokens from legal vendors.
“Customers are therefore urged to purchase electricity tokens from authorised vendors and to pay for their electricity consumption to prevent unnecessary outages. Eskom urges members of the public to use only essential energy and refrain from illegal electricity activities so as to avoid network overloading and subsequent infrastructure failures,” Eskom concluded.
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