Residents of East Lynne in Tshwane have been left frustrated and angry after enduring prolonged electricity outages since 26 December, followed by water disruptions that began this week, compounding already dire living conditions in the area.
Despite repeated updates by the municipality, residents say little progress was made, while basic services remained unreliable for more than a week.
‘We cannot live like this’
East Lynne resident Sandra van Wyk said households had been without electricity since Boxing Day, with water outages starting on Thursday after a burst main.
“We are without electricity from 26 December until today. And now we are without water as well. This is unacceptable. We cannot live like this,” Van Wyk told The Citizen.
“Residents don’t have the means to get a generator, they don’t have the means to buy R3 000 worth of fuel every day. People are suffering. They had to throw out food. They did not budget for this, nor did I,” she added.
According to her, municipal teams initially repaired a burst water pipe, but the problem resurfaced shortly after supply was restored.
“They told residents yesterday that the pipe was fixed. When they opened the water, it started leaking again. Now they have to start all the work over. That’s another 12 hours without water, on top of no electricity,” she said.
The City of Tshwane on Saturday afternoon confirmed that the water supply had been restored.
Residents counting the cost
The prolonged outage had a severe financial impact on residents, particularly those without alternative power sources.
Van Wyk added that she spent thousands of rands on fuel over several days to keep a generator running.
“This is money we never planned to spend. People are suffering,” she said.
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WATCH: Councillor cites infrastructure failures, vandalism
Ward councillor Freddie Pienaar confirmed the outages, saying they stemmed from a combination of infrastructure failures and vandalism.
“Initially, there was a breakdown at a primary station, which caused the outage in the area and also affected neighbouring supply lines,” Pienaar told The Citizen.
He said that while some sections had been restored, ongoing vandalism and multiple cable faults complicated the situation.
“Unfortunately, there has been a lot of vandalism in the eastern areas. That has now become an ongoing problem, because we have to replace transformers and cables repeatedly,” Pienaar said.
He acknowledged that the electricity outages also affected water supply, as pumping systems depend on power.
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System update
According to a Waltloo Depot progress report issued at 8am on Saturday, power has been restored to parts of East Lynne, but several critical medium-voltage cables remain faulty.
The report states that a burnt cable caused by a fire was repaired and energised, restoring power to some areas. However, other cables, including a critical line between Stegman and McLaren streets, are still under investigation.
Municipal teams also accidentally damaged a main water pipe while excavating to repair an electricity cable, forcing the matter to be escalated to the water department.
On Saturday, technicians were reported to be on site to fix the water leak, while residents gathered at the affected area.
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