The GCN finally received an answer from the metro, after many of the city’s suburbs were again left without power (GCN, April 18).
A statement from the metro’s department of communications and brand management said: “The power was out in many of the suburbs, especially Tedstoneville, due to a 6.6KV kiosk being vandalised.
“The power was off until 9pm, as it took a long time to fix all the equipment that had been affected.
“With regard to the power problems in Delville, there have been a number of cable faults, acts of vandalism and theft in the suburb.
“There have been a number of normal and abnormal failures of equipment, recently.
“We perform maintenance every year and, depending on the budget, we also do major maintenance.”
With regard to finding a solution to the continual power problems in Germiston, the comment was: “For now, we are repairing faults, replacing vandalised equipment and replacing old infrastructure.”
The GCN also asked about the Call Taking Centre; why calls were not answered and why, when they were, the employees were often rude and unhelpful.
This is what the metro had to say on the matter: “The Call Taking Centre, as a norm, receives more calls at any given moment than it has agents available to answer the calls.
“Callers do not always have the required information for the logging of a call readily available and so the agent must wait while the caller goes to get the required information.
“These main factors mean that other callers cannot get through to the Call Taking Centre.
“The upgraded Call Taking Centre is being opened by the executive mayor early in May, and many more agents will be available to take calls from the public.
“This will greatly reduce the waiting time for a call to be answered.
“However, it does not mean that all calls will be answered immediately, as the number of incoming calls at a given moment may still exceed the number of agents available to take calls.”
The metro did not furnish us with details of how residents could claim for spoilt food and damage to property due to the power outages.
