Durban - An extended power cut led to protest action by Durban residents that disrupted traffic on the N2 southbound on Tuesday night.
The city said in a notice on its Facebook page late on Tuesday night that the road had been closed due to a community protest that is affecting the safety of motorists. The road was later reopened.
The extended power outage, which started on Saturday, affected Bonela, Insimbini, Kwa Masxha, and Cato Manor.
Resident, Sanele Ndimande said they had bought food for the festive season which they now fear would be spoiled.
He expressed anger at the response from authorities when they pleaded for help, saying officials at eThekwini Municipality did not answer their calls.
“It is Christmas next week and the food that is meant to last us for the entire month is getting rotten in fridges. We demand our electricity back otherwise we will take the rotten food to the electricity department building because there are no updates whatsoever and their phones are always down,” said Ndimande.
Ward councillor Bhekisisa Mngadi sympathised with the residents, saying he understood their frustrations.
He said the protesters also blocked Harry Gwala Road with tyres and threw stones onto the highway.
“It has been several days without electricity, it is a very sad issue and they are very angry. People are complaining that food is going off in fridges,” said Mngadi.
Mngadi said he had even contacted the mayor Mxolisi Kaunda so that he could personally ask the electricity team to be sent to the area.
He added that cable theft had resulted in an overloaded electricity system which could not cope with the power demand.
“I wanted this to be resolved as quickly as possible because people deserve to have power, especially at this time of the year. But again this goes back to cable theft, there are not enough cables to sustain and distribute power. Our people should report people who steal cables and we are very angry with the scrap yards that are buying illegal cables,” said Mngadi.
EThekwini Municipality spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said the electricity department responded to the affected areas.
“Our teams attended to cable faults in these areas yesterday, however, upon energising, the cables faulted again. The staff went as far as working throughout the night so that supply is restored today (Wednesday),” said Mayisela.
He added that residents could claim for spoiled food due to the power outage.
“Residents can submit their claims to [email protected]. They need to provide full details of the incident, reference numbers, their address and the approximate value of perishables lost. The council will then investigate the matter and respond” he explained.
He added that continued load shedding was having an impact on the electricity system in the city.
“We want to point out that all these outages, are exacerbated by the ongoing load shedding which is beyond the city’s control. We therefore appeal to the members of the public to bear with us as we are working very hard to restored power to all our clients”, Mayisela concluded.