Bay business buckles under power outages and water stoppages

Power outages and surges and resultant water stoppages rolled across Nelson Mandela Bay at the weekend, poleaxing businesses struggling to emerge from the devastation of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Keith Fourie, of the Silver Cloud Spur Steak Ranch in Newton Park, said power surges on Sunday had caused more than R30,000 in damage to his electronic equipment.

“The power went off before 7am and we switched to our generator,” he said.

“But that only worked for a short while as there was a huge power surge at 9.30am which tripped our distribution board.

“That then messed up a lot of the electronics, including an extractor fan —  and it is nearly impossible to run a restaurant without an extractor fan.”

Fourie said his team had been forced to set up an alternative grill station outside the store for four hours and then, just as they thought they were in the clear on Sunday afternoon, they had been hit by a water outage.

“At about 2pm, the water went off and we called it a day,” he said.

“We would normally close our store at 8pm so I estimate we had to throw away about R40,000 in turnover.

“Today [Monday], we are picking up the pieces, contacting all the places to fix the cameras, the extractor fans, the computer system, and the list goes on of all the things that were damaged by the surge.”

Malabar barber Jignesh Maisuria said he was fortunate to have a generator.

“I had to use my generator, which is expensive, but what can we do?” 

“I am trying to keep my business afloat,” he said.

Betty Gwewo, a manager at Seattle Coffee’s Perridgevale shop, said they had lost a considerable amount of money on Saturday morning due to the power outage.

“I get here at 6am to bake our goods and as I was busy the power went off.

“It was hectic because we do not have a generator,” she said.

“For the three hours that the power was out we had to send all our customers to our other branches.

“It was a shame because Saturday was cold and wet and therefore promising to be a great day for selling coffee.”

Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Nomkhita Mona said the chamber was concerned about the extent of unplanned power outages across the metro.

“We have requested that the responsible municipal directorate present their plans to resolve the situation and improve the reliability of their systems.

“The focus of the upcoming meeting between our organisations will be on addressing the root causes of what is clearly a systemic problem.”

She said it was crucial for the municipality to reduce these outages as they had both a short- and long-term negative impact on the regional economy.

“In the short term, small businesses, shops and factories in the affected areas lose time and money.

“This also results in water shortages across some areas of the metro when pump stations are affected.

“In the long run, a high incidence of localised outages results in declining investor confidence, which makes it difficult to attract and/ or retain business investment in Nelson Mandela Bay.”

Reliability of municipal services should be priority number one for the metro, Mona said.

“Ease of doing business has a direct economic impact on the region.”

The first problem identified by the metro on Saturday was in Kragga Kamma, where a circuit breaker at the Ditchling substation tripped and, thereafter, a series of outages hit different suburbs across the Bay.

In the Brymore-Framesby Gardens area, an electrician on a neighbourhood WhatsApp group sent out an alert on Sunday morning about voltage dipping from the normal 220v to 119v which could damage electrical equipment, and by mid-morning household lights were low and flickering.

He advised residents to switch off distribution boards, and shortly afterwards the municipality cut the power.

It returned only shortly after 9.30pm and one resident said his house alarm battery had consequently run flat and might have to be replaced.

Power or water outages were also experienced in Westering, Parson’s Hill and Greenacres, Overbaakens, Fairview, Malabar, Walmer Township, Kwazakhele and New Brighton.

Bay engineering and infrastructure political head Mongameli Bobani said last week that to stop power outages the city needed R700m to replace aged infrastructure.

In this financial year, the budget allocation in this regard was just R36m but, with its annual budget allocations, the city would try over the next five years to allocate the full amount needed to clear all aged infrastructure, he said.

Asked on Monday if this meant that the city would continue to experience outages for at least the next five years, Bobani said: “No, an outage is an unplanned incident.

“The main cause of the outages [at the weekend] was not due to lack of maintenance or equipment failure but vandalism and bad weather.”

Wet conditions caused arcing, an electrical explosion, he said.

“This compromises the insulation and conductor terminations, which results in a fault.

“The majority of high voltage networks use overhead lines, which are more susceptible to bad weather.”

Bobani said on Sunday the problem was that the wet weather was compromising the insulation of the power cables.

Asked on Monday why insulated cables were not withstanding wet weather and whether poor maintenance was not a factor, he replied only that repeated faults on a particular line could in themselves compromise cable insulation.

Vandalism of electrical infrastructure was a common problem and bullet holes had been found this weekend in a cable in the Schauder area, Bobani said.

The metro has condemned illegal connections because of the danger they pose to children and also the damage they do to the grid, and Bobani conceded this problem again last week.

But he also noted that, in many cases, communities resisted attempts to  remove them.

Asked if this meant that the metro would allow illegal connections to continue, he said it did not.

“In dealing decisively with this problem, we will provide residents with an alternative safe connection and we will engage with the metro’s safety and security directorate and politicians to develop a standard operating procedure to deal with the matter.”

Asked about the problem of electricity infrastructure thieves, apparently with inside knowledge of the metro’s power systems, stripping these installations, and what progress had been made in countering them, he said the problem had emerged a year ago.

“Only two suspects have been arrested.

“The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality electricity and energy department is engaging with the metro’s safety and security department as well as the police,” Bobani said.

Last week, metro electricity director Luvuyo Magalela said one of the causes of power outages was contractors damaging underground cables.

When this was put to him on Monday, Bobani said it was not clear to what extent companies laying fibre were the culprits, but he confirmed that the metro was trying to increase the R5,000 fine levied as more of a deterrent.

On how power outages were triggering water supply problems, he said this was happening because pumps failed — but he failed to say how many systems were affected.

Pressed on the metro’s plan for stopping power outages, he said it comprised four goals — refurbishing old infrastructure, modernising the network to detect faults from inception, regular maintenance and improving substation security.

“This happens on a continuous basis,” Bobani said.

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