The state of erratic electricity supply in the Laudium/Claudius area was nothing short of shocking (no pun intended), this past Monday (January 22).
With cables being repeatedly stolen in the area, many irate residents and business owners believed this to be the case, but in an ironical twist, it was actually council contractors working on leaking pipes, who damaged an underground cable, resulting in many homes, schools and businesses in Laudium being without power, from about 10.30am that day.
Many irritated Laudium CBD business owners, who were affected by the power outage, vented their frustrations to the Ladium Sun. Sajid Patel of Bajatwala Fruiters said, "Thank God we always keep a generator in our shop for times like this, or else all our fruit and vegetables could rot, especially in this heat."
Ebie Alli, of Ajmer Butchery, said that business slowed down, and customers were inconvenienced, but business resumed when the power came back on that afternoon. "Thank God it wasn't the whole day," he said.
Dorothy Sethioie from Microchip said that they were forced to closed their doors during the outage, because electricity was essential to prepare food. Nital Chipa from Civic Pharmacy in the CBD said that without power they were not able to do much and had to turn customers away as their computers were all down, resulting in the business running at a loss for a few hours.
Muhammad Uzair from Cliq to Save said their business too was put on hold as no orders could be placed, which resulted in a few disgruntled customers.
Although the power was restored in Laudium later that afternoon soon thereafter, Claudius residents faced a power outage, the catalyst for this being the same road workers damaging another cable. Although the power to Claudius was restored early Monday evening, the area found itself in darkness again soon thereafter, with infuriated residents up in arms as the power was only restored on Tuesday morning (January 23) at about 10am. According to one council official, the delay in re-connecting the power to Claudius, was a technical problem.
Ward 61 Councillor, Mahomed Essop, told the Laudium Sun that the problem was initially caused by damage to an underground cable, due to maintenance. “Thereafter the technicians experienced technical problems in Claudius and worked throughout the night to restore power to the area.”
Muhammad Uzair of Cliq to Save said placing orders without power, was a problem.
Microchip’s Dorathy Sethoie said they closed their doors for a few hours.
Ebie Alli of Ajmer Butchery was relieved that power was restored the same day.
Councillor Mahomed Essop said contractors damaged the cable.
Nital Chipa of Civic Pharmacy said their computers were down so could not do business.