Carletonville Left in the Dark for More Than a Month

Boitumelo Dick has run her bakery in Welverdiend since 2016. But she has been unable to consistently operate because power has been out for most of the past month.

• Carletonville, located under the Merafong Local Municipality in Gauteng, has experienced prolonged power outages for over a month.
• Residents and business owners in Welverdiend, Carletonville, complain that newer, low-income communities are overloading the grid.
• The communities share one transformer. The original one blew after being overloaded, and a new one had to be sent for repairs.
• On Monday morning, the municipality told GroundUp that power had been restored on Sunday. However, when we spoke to some residents at noon on Monday, parts of Welverdien were still without power.

Boitumelo Dick has run her small bakery in Welverdiend, Carletonville, since 2016. For over a month, she has been unable to run her ovens due to extended power outages in the community.

Dick says the Welverdiend community currently shares a power source — a transformer at the Frikkie van der Merwe substation — with neighbouring areas of Khutsong and Elijah Barayi.

Welverdiend residents and many business owners like Dick complain that newer neighbouring communities are overloading the system and do not pay for the electricity they use.

“The transformer burnt due to overloading because we are using the same transformer with Khutsong Extension 5 and Elijah Barayi. These are new developments,” said Dick.

Although a replacement transformer was ordered and installed over the weekend, Dick said it broke down hours later, leaving them in the dark again on Monday.

She said there has been no communication about the situation from the Merafong Local Municipality.

“I have big stoves in my bakery. I can’t afford to use a generator. Life is hard enough without electricity, but more so when you’re running businesses,” she said.

Dick said she has written to her ward councillor and the municipality to ask for help, but to no avail. She accused residents in the neighbouring areas of not paying for electricity.

Last week, GroundUp reported on deteriorating living conditions in Khutsong, where residents battle electricity outages and water shortages. Illegal electricity connections are a common occurrence.

Sakkie Pieterse, who runs a petrol station and liquor store in Welverdiend, said he has spent R40,000 on fuel to keep the lights on at his businesses through two generators.

“My normal monthly expenditure on electricity is R25,000 for the two businesses, but I’ve now used about R40,000. The cost of using the generators is too high,” he said.

“The council is building houses at an alarming rate, but there is no infrastructure development. A town planner used to plan everything, electricity, roads, and sewer pipes before they built houses, but they don’t seem to do it here,” he said.

Sakkie Pieterse spends about R40,000 on fuel to keep the lights on at one of his two businesses using this generator.

Resident Dan Matlala told GroundUp that his family now spends about R100 on food daily because all the meat in their freezer had spoiled.

In response to our questions on Monday morning, municipal spokesman Thabo Moloja said that power was restored on Sunday. But when we spoke to some residents at noon on Monday, parts of Welverdiend were still without power.

“The delay was primarily due to significant damage to the transformer at the Frikkie van der Merwe Substation. The original transformer was sent for repairs. The appointed contractor indicated a turnaround time of 6 to 8 weeks,” he added.

But a replacement transformer “unfortunately failed during the commissioning process and had to be returned for repairs as well,” said Moloja.

A newly installed transformer has more capacity, said Moloja.

“To ensure a long-term and sustainable solution, the municipality procured a brand-new 10 MVA transformer, double the capacity of the previous 5 MVA units. This transformer was built from scratch and took three weeks to be completed. This upgrade will significantly improve the load-handling capabilities and reduce the risk of future overload-related failures.”

He added that Merafong has approved an agreement with Eskom “to support the municipality in upgrading its electricity infrastructure, building internal technical capacity, and enhancing the overall reliability of electricity supply”. The agreement is currently awaiting approval from the National Treasury.

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