Lights out causes rage and indignation in Kibler Park

Absolute rage and anger erupted from the crowd of 200 or so Johannesburg Ward 125 residents who attended a public meeting to discuss City Power’s failure to render service.

The meeting was called to address City Power’s inability to restore power to blocks five and 14 after load shedding, a large number of unscheduled power outages, cable theft and the inordinately long periods taken to restore power after an outage for whatever reason.

The meeting announced by the DA Clr Matsobane Sekhu had given City Power ample notice to send a representative with executive authority. City Power sent four stooges all of whom are engaged by City Power in ‘acting’ roles.

During the two and half hour long meeting, the City Power representatives demonstrated their total ineptness.

The residents were not interested in the two ‘stakeholder’ representatives, who, as it turned out, never said a word, and neither did they take any notes!

There were two more actors who tried hard to placate the residents with meaningless platitudes even stating that they knew how the residents felt.

Residents were given a rundown of the weaknesses and failings of the network without even a hint of how and when matters would be rectified.

One by one, folks stood up to express their frustrations, one person broke down as she described how an elderly relative had to survive over 60 hours without power to her oxygen-generating equipment during an outage as long ago as last week. The City Power representatives looked on, in a state of expressionless apathy.

People complained how the unreliable electricity affected their businesses, damaged their appliances, caused unsustainable losses to foodstuff requiring refrigeration, school-going youngsters unable to do their homework, having to bath in cold water and of course security systems and electrically operated gates not working. The latter causes considerable security risks.

Questions asked related to the following categories:

1. Why is so much new development approved when it is clear that the substations are overloaded?

2. Why doesn’t City Power have adequate and effective security protecting the most vulnerable cable theft sites? Plus why doesn’t City Power cooperate with the SAPS and local private security firms?

3. What plans does City Power have to purchase power from IPPs? To this end, a question arose about the role of Kelvin Power Station which was never answered. My research indicates that Kelvin is a foreign-owned power plant which sells its power to Johannesburg. The bad news is Kelvin is 55 or so years old and due to close in 2026, which will only make matters worse.

4. City Power were asked why they employ foreign nationals and why don’t they make use of local labour and electrician services. Local referring to qualified people within Ward 125.

5. Questions were raised about the enormously long times to fix outage problems. Between May 18 and May 21, an outage affecting block 14 was atrociously handled by repair crews being allocated and withdrawn before the job completion. The outage lasted sixty hours during the coldest period so far this winter.

6.Why do City Power teams provide the councillor with obviously untrue progress reports?

Answers from City Power

Councillor Sekhu attempted to answer question one by describing the planning process indicating that permissions are only granted if all the departments indicate that capacity is available.

Regrettably, it is believed that the process is open to fraud leading to the likelihood that some permissions could be bought.

A member of the public pointed out that new developments should be forced to supply solar power. One resident pointed out the Mafia tactics employed by the cable thief syndicates who terrorize shack dwellers into digging trenches from where cables are stolen.

The four representatives from City Power were dumbfounded and thought quite simply that the Ward 125 residents could be placated by meaningless platitudes. The crowd informed them in no uncertain terms that complete responses were required from the City power executive. The group was then told that City Power had no budget available!

A gentleman formerly from Soweto and now a prominent resident of Ward 125 reminded City Power that Soweto’s electricity debt of five billion Rand was about to be written off, however, Ward 125 residents get cut off if they don’t pay their account of a few thousand Rand.

Hopefully, this letter serves the purpose of minuting the proceedings if the Councilor does not publish any minutes.

This matter is by no means over, the residents demanded a follow-up meeting on June 7. The only acceptable terms are that City Power be represented by board executives having been invested with the authority to make decisions and take action.

The residents are demanding immediate action and City Power’s reaction needs to include the ‘what, who, why, how and when’ in their response. City Power was also promised that the crowd in attendance on the June 7 would be double the size.

David Whyte