28 November 2025
By Danie Jacobs
Klerksdorp Record, Klerksdorp - The community is “used” to bad service delivery - power cuts, potholes, and sewage running down the street. Nothing, however, could have prepared residents staying in the northern suburbs for the three-day blackout that hit them this week.
The power went off at around 10:00 on Sunday November 23. Those who have solar or invertors running on Eskom power were blissfully unaware. Those without emergency power were immediately left powerless.
Then by lunchtime, the power was still off and the Whatsapp group of Ward 39 announced “we have lost the feeder cable from the Doringkruin substation to the Monica West Main sub, which feeds the entire NORTH”.
This was followed the next day with “the teams did not have the correct high-voltage cable joints and had to stop repairs”.
By then the north went back to the dark ages with run-down invertors (for the privileged), and residents were forced to go back to using candles for light and gas for cooking. Those who don’t have a gas stove had to make other plans. Meanwhile, the power stayed off.
After numerous updated from a just as frustrated ward councillor Inge Wilken, she at last shared some good news on Tuesday November 25 at 15:00 that progress was at 75%. The power was eventually restored at 19:30 (57 hours after the power failed). The impact on such a blackout is immense, especially to the economy. Digital Express Klerksdorp, announced on Facebook that they had to close their doors for business during the blackout.
Who is to blame for this? Cllr Gerhard Strydom, DA caucus leader, didn’t mince his words. “This prolonged blackout was not the result of an unavoidable technical failure, it was the direct consequence of poor management and the municipality’s ongoing failure to maintain essential store items. Critical high-voltage joints required to restore supply were simply not available. This shortage persisted despite repeated requests to the Stores Section, under the leadership and oversight of the Chief Financial Officer to prioritise and stock vital materials needed for electricity repairs and daily operations. These warnings were ignored, and residents paid the price,” he said.
He added the electrical cables between the Doringkruin and Monica substations, the root cause of the outage, should have been replaced by the end of September this year. Due to non-payment of the contractor, the project was halted, once again highlighting financial mismanagement and the collapse of operational discipline within the municipality.
He called on the Municipal Manager and the Executive Mayor to immediately investigate this failure within the Stores Section and to hold those responsible for sabotaging Matlosana’s economy and frustrating its residents to account.
To date, no official response was received from the municipality regarding the black out.
