The power outage, which lasted almost five days, was caused by damaged low voltage cables. The spokesperson of Centlec, Lele Mamatu, told OFM News the problem was due to overloading, allegedly caused by student houses and water maintenance related issues.

He went on to say that they had teams working around the clock but due to the complexity of the system without alternative feeders they were unable to restore electricity before the repairs were done. Mamatu explained that the power was intermittently restored between Thursday and Sunday. However, there were about two or three houses where the electricity was only restored on Monday at about 13:00 because their circuit breakers were mistakenly left switched off.

This comes after OFM News reported last week Friday that residents in this street are fed-up as they have been without electricity since Wednesday morning.

It is important for residents to remember that all is not lost, should they have suffered any loss or damage to food in freezers during this time. Santam Bloemfontein’s Dumisani John told OFM News that if people’s food in their freezers is spoiled, they will be able to claim from their “contents of the house” insurance.

According to Mamatu, people without insurance may also submit a claim at Centlec for anything that might have been damaged during the power outage. He told OFM News the claims are then assessed and an investigation is done to see if it was a fault on Centlec’s side. All claims are not necessarily successful if the investigation shows the damage was not due to electricity outages.

OFM News/Sazly Hartzenberg