Pretoria’s Power Crisis: Infrastructure Crumbles as City Scrambles for Stability
PRETORIA, South Africa – Residents and businesses in South Africa’s administrative capital are enduring a relentless Pretoria power outage crisis, driven by years of systemic underinvestment, aging infrastructure, and rampant criminality. While the City of Tshwane has announced emergency hiring and maintenance plans to stabilize its collapsing electricity network, communities in suburbs like Garsfontein report daily disruptions that are crippling livelihoods and endangering lives. This widening gap between municipal promises and on-the-ground reality highlights a deep-seated governance failure, leaving thousands to navigate an unreliable grid with little faith in timely solutions.
The crisis came into sharp focus this week as Executive Mayor Dr. Nasiphi Moya outlined measures to address what she termed “years of under-financing and repeated infrastructure failures.” In a briefing reported by SABC News, Moya announced the advertising of 64 critical positions—including engineers, technicians, and field teams—and a new focus on proactive maintenance. “The first job adverts were issued last week… whose presence directly affects operational response times, service quality and the risk of repeat outages,” Moya stated. However, this administrative response stands in stark contrast to the lived experience in wards like Garsfontein, where the Pretoria power outage problem is not a future risk but a present, constant emergency.
Garsfontein’s Agony: A Case Study in Systemic Failure
The Garsfontein Substation has become the grim epicenter of the city’s power woes. As detailed by Ward Councillor Elizabeth Basson in a report by The Citizen, the area has suffered an exponential increase in both the frequency and duration of outages since late November 2025. Residents endured eight interruptions in a single day in early December, including a major outage caused by cable theft, and spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the dark due to a lack of back-feeding capacity. The new year offered no respite, with four more outages recorded in the first four days of January alone.
“Garsfontein residents are diligent ratepayers who deserve a stable electricity supply. Not everyone can afford to install alternative power systems,” Basson said, highlighting the economic injustice of the crisis. She warned of the severe impact on businesses, six retirement villages with frail-care facilities, and several educational institutions.
Councillor Basson’s account paints a picture of a community abandoned by its municipal service provider. Despite escalating concerns to senior management, residents have received “no response, not even to requests for a community meeting.” Her warning is dire: “We have seen several fires and explosions at substations across the city in recent weeks, and we do not want a similar incident at Garsfontein.” This fear underscores that the Pretoria power outage crisis is more than an inconvenience; it is a looming public safety disaster. For ongoing coverage of this and other critical infrastructure issues affecting the region, follow our dedicated South Africa news desk.
The Funding Chasm: Promises, Priorities, and a Lack of Timelines
The municipal response to the Garsfontein-specific crisis, as communicated by Metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo, reveals a bureaucracy trapped in a cycle of planning without action. Mashigo confirmed that a request for capital funding to refurbish the substation has been submitted and is “being prioritised” but has not yet been approved. “As soon as the required funding is allocated, the refurbishment project will commence,” he stated, offering no concrete timeline. Crucially, Mashigo admitted, “there are currently no clear timelines for the repair of the protection infrastructure,” as logistical preparations are still underway.
“The city acknowledges the inconvenience caused and urges residents to report criminal activities involving electricity infrastructure to the TMPD or SAPS,” Mashigo said, placing partial responsibility back on citizens while advising those who depend on power for medical care to “consider installing alternative or renewable energy solutions.”
This advice, while pragmatic, is a stark admission of the city’s inability to guarantee a basic service. It effectively shifts the financial burden of municipal failure onto households and businesses already bleeding income from constant disruptions. The spokesperson’s comments underscore a fundamental disconnect: while the city frames cable theft and vandalism as primary causes—which they undoubtedly are—residents like those in Garsfontein see these criminal acts exploiting an infrastructure already weakened by decades of neglect and poor maintenance.
The path forward is fraught with challenges. Mayor Moya’s hiring spree is a necessary first step, but rebuilding institutional knowledge and technical capacity takes years, not weeks. The funding for critical projects like the Garsfontein refurbishment remains trapped in a sluggish bureaucratic process, with no guarantee of swift allocation. In the interim, the vicious cycle continues: aging, unprotected infrastructure fails or is vandalized, causing a Pretoria power outage; overstretched and understaffed teams scramble to perform reactive repairs; and the underlying systemic weaknesses remain unaddressed, setting the stage for the next failure. Until the city can bridge the chasm between its recovery plans and the urgent capital needed to execute them, and until it can effectively secure its infrastructure from criminal syndicates, the lights in Pretoria will continue to flicker and fail, casting a long shadow over the city’s economic stability and the well-being of its residents.
