That does sound a bit strange. In South Africa, the power company doesn't do maintenance because they have no money. This is a combination of really bad management by cronies without any relevent skills being given high end positions, and downright theft. It has been estimated that about $35Billion has been siphoned off over the last ten years. (and that's just the elec utility, the other 20 or so state owned enteprises are almost as bad. Our national airline and broadcaster cannot survive without government bailouts.) Also compounding the problem is that the majority of townships (Apartheid era low income residential areas, shanty towns), owe a few $Billion in debt to the utility. Then there is the illegal connections, where township dwellers just connect themselves to the mains, causes all sorts of problems like substations catching fire.
I could go on for days. They don't call it darkest africa for nothing.