Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Cllr Carina Serfontein and Sesotho soundbite by Cllr Joseph Mbele.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will write to the Ngwathe Municipal Manager and the Provincial COGTA to request urgent intervention, a full technical assessment, and an immediate recovery plan to stabilise the collapsing electricity network affecting Rooipoort, Weltevrede, and Spaarveldt, which is now threatening power stability across the entire town.
Residents and businesses in these areas are experiencing frequent, prolonged, and often unannounced power outages, resulting in repeated damage to electrical appliances, infrastructure, equipment, and productive operations.
For many households and businesses, this crisis has moved far beyond inconvenience.
Families are experiencing mounting financial pressure, spoiled food, damaged electronics, rising repair costs, disrupted communication and growing uncertainty regarding basic daily living conditions.
Businesses are suffering operational losses, trade interruptions, equipment damage, and declining productivity, further straining an already struggling local economy.
In some instances, residents have been left without an electricity supply for days at a time.
This situation is unacceptable.
What is even more alarming is that failures within this network are now repeatedly tripping and destabilising the electricity supply across the entire town.
As a result, the whole town is increasingly affected by recurring outages, voltage instability, and widespread electricity interruptions linked to failures originating in these areas.
This is no longer a localised fault issue. It is now a full-scale infrastructure and governance crisis.
Entire sections of the town are being left vulnerable for extended periods without electricity, disrupting homes, businesses, communication systems, and essential services, while exposing the complete failure of preventive maintenance and long-term infrastructure management.
The ongoing instability raises serious and urgent questions about the condition of the electricity network infrastructure, failures in preventive maintenance, technical response capacity, the availability of resources and personnel, infrastructure planning, and the municipality’s overall ability to stabilise and manage the network effectively.
Communities cannot continue to live under constant uncertainty while infrastructure deteriorates, businesses absorb ongoing losses, and residents face repeated property damage and appliance failures.
The DA therefore calls for immediate intervention and demands:
- An urgent independent technical assessment of the affected electricity network.
- Immediate identification of the root causes of repeated failures and trips.
- A full investigation into maintenance failures and infrastructure conditions.
- Emergency intervention measures to stabilise the electricity supply across the town.
- Immediate mitigation measures to reduce further damage to residents and businesses.
- A transparent, time-bound recovery and infrastructure upgrade plan.
- Clear public communication and accountability regarding ongoing failures.
The continued collapse of critical infrastructure and the normalisation of prolonged outages cannot be accepted.
Residents deserve reliable basic services, functioning infrastructure and competent governance.