Mayor announces R46-m package and other extraordinary interventions to sort our power outages in Ekurhuleni

The mayor of Ekurhuleni, Mzwandile Masina, recently announced a list of extraordinary measures intended to deal with the persistent spate of power outages across Ekurhuleni.

The metro noted that most of the outages are caused by illegal connections and direct connections to distribution pillars and street lights that eventually overwhelm the grid.

Starting this month, the following interventions will be implemented under the project name, Power to the People:

* R46-million intervention package: The mayoral committee has resolved to present a R46-million intervention package to the Ekurhuleni Council for approval. The package is intended to stabilise the grid in the Tokoza area by installing another transformer to the local sub-station to increase power generation capacity. The funds will also be used to install additional protective boxes, undertake cable reconfiguration and install split prepaid meters to contain the load.

* Energy champions: Members of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) have been appointed to act as energy champions across the City. The MMCs will be working closely with area engineers on a daily basis and will be tasked to submit two reports to the office of the mayor – one in the morning to identify potential hotspots and risks elements in the various areas and a second report that will be submitted at 8pm to outline mitigation measures.

The following MMCs have been deployed to the respective regions: Ekurhuleni North – Nkosindiphile Xhakaza,  Ekurhuleni South – Khosi Mabaso, Ekurhuleni East – Masele Madihlaba.

* Germiston substation and cable installations: Construction on the new substation in Germiston North is currently 90 per cent complete. Two new cables, a 132kV and 133 kV, have been installed in Wadeville and are set to stabilise the energy supply in the area.

According to metro spokesperson, Themba Gadebe, a newly built mini-substation intended to supply power to the Primrose and Lambton areas was broken into and vandalised just two days after being commissioned. Repairs are currently underway on the substation and investigations into the cable theft are underway.

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* Illegal connection clean out: The EMPD will conduct a series of raids in areas with incidents of illegal connections. The EMPD will be accompanied by the City’s Energy Department officials to disconnect the illegal connections and secure all meter boxes that have been tampered with.

“We cannot afford to be having prolonged power outages during these cold winter nights, it is unacceptable. We fully understand the community’s frustrations and anger at the present moment, and that is why we are focusing all our energies for the next few weeks to stabilise the grid in these various areas.

“We call upon Eskom engineers to cooperate and work with Eskom supplied communities, in order to find sustainable solutions to the energy issues in the area. We can no longer theorise on this issue, we are going to the ground to fix this situation,” said Masina in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Phakamile Mbengashe.

The mayor added that a timeline of three weeks has been set for a speedy resolution to the unplanned and sporadic energy outages in the Ekurhuleni.

“The City continues to call upon communities to call the anti-fraud and corruption hotline on 0800 102 201 to report illegal connections,” said the mayor.

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