City Power technicians restoring electricity in Alexandra come under threat

City Power’s Service Delivery Centre has pleaded with the community of Alexandra to stop burning tyres and other acts of intimidation directed at their technicians working in the area.

Spokesperson for the City of Johannesburg’s power entity Isaac Mangena said that technicians who are on-site to continue with repairs and restoration of the power damaged by heavy rains were allegedly intimidated by the community members at Far East Bank, West Bank and Tsutsumani.
“We appeal to the community to allow our technicians to do their work and help restore power to affected households as this is in their best interests. If that power is not restored, the same residents will complain again,” Mangena said.

He said heavy rains and the actions of the community exacerbate the already dire situation of power outages in the area. “It [actions of the community members] serves nothing but to delay the work to do the repairs and restore electricity in those areas.
“City Power will not hesitate to pull out its teams from the area if there are safety concerns for our technicians. We are also aware of power outages in Malboro, Lombardy East, Wynburg North and Linen Road,” he added.

The estimated restoration time has not been established at this point in time, however, the entity was engaging the councillors and community leaders with the hope that calm will be restored, Mangena said.
“We further apologise for the inconvenience caused by these outages. We appeal for patience and understanding as we work on these backlogs,” Mangena said, adding the acts of intimidation were perpetrated on February 11.

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