A full investigation has been launched following the explosion of a substation situated at the
Coega IDZ on Saturday, 11 March.
The explosion led to an electricity blackout of surrounding areas within Motherwell, including 15 Coega SEZ customers.
Led by the Executive Mayor, Retief Odendaal, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality held an
emergency JOC meeting, to trigger swift action to circumvent the impact of this explosion and
get into the bottom of what might have caused the explosion.
According to Mthubanzi Mniki, municipal spokesperson, a full independent investigation into the causes of the explosion
has been launched following the JOC meeting, as there is a suspicion of foul play.
“Today, the Municipality will be meeting
the CDC and affected businesses to develop a solution that will mitigate adverse impact of the
constrained electricity supply,” Mniki said.
The damage to the substation infrastructure is estimated to be more than R40 million.
“As a short-term electricity solution, and to circumvent further negative impact on customers
and residents, plans are currently underway to back-feed and restore electricity supply from
another substation also within the Coega SEZ.
“On a medium term, a line will be constructed to reconnect the affected residents and IDZ
customers from the nearby substation while construction work to rehabilitate the substation
continues.
A contractor is already on site to restore electricity on the short to medium term.”
Security is
currently being reinforced to protect critical strategic infrastructure.
Residents are encouraged to be vigilant and work together with the Municipality and law
enforcement agencies to curb vandalism and criminality targeted at Municipal infrastructure
that provide basic services to our community.
“The Municipality would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused by the unexpected
outage. We are working hard to restore power to the affected residents and businesses.”
