Paulus Shiku
WINDHOEK – A power outage that hit Elisenheim Lifestyle Village in Windhoek on Tuesday last week persisted through to Thursday afternoon.
A public notice by the City of Windhoek indicated that the problem was caused by a faulty power supply cable.
“The type of fault being experienced by the supply cable in question is caused by a condition that is technically known as ‘water treeing’ aggravated by water ingress and the effects are multiple faults on the cable due to compromised insulation integrity and can no longer sustain a high loading,” reads the public notice.
The power failure also affected NaTIS offices as well as many other businesses in the north of the capital city that are being supplied by the same electric cable.
A resident of the village who spoke to New Era on Thursday complained that frozen food in refrigerators started rotting and most of it had to be thrown away.
“It is a disaster, we do not know when they will restore the power, I also do not understand why it has to take so long to rectify the situation.”
Manager of Corporate Communications at the City of Windhoek Harold Akwenye confirmed the blackout, but noted that the matter has been on the city’s radar since it surfaced Tuesday.
Akwenye said a team was sent to the area immediately but had been struggling to restore power due to the complicated nature of the cable.
“The problem is that when the electricians fix one fault, new faults keep coming up and that delays the work – however we are confident that the lights will be on today,” said Akwenye.
He also said the damaged supply cable will be completely replaced to avoid similar outages in the future.
Akwenye in an official communication to Elisenheim residents explained that they get their electricity from a temporary supply point in the Northern Industrial Area and there is no alternative supply, besides the cable being very old.
“ Recent heavy rains in the area resulted in the cable insulation integrity being compromised resulting in the underground cable fault,” he said.