GARETH LINDSAY writes:
This letter serves to inform you of the disappointment and anger caused by the repetitive failures of the metro to address issues regarding electrical outages in Kempton Park.
On June 9 almost all of Kempton Park was left in darkness from 5.45pm until about 9.30pm, with some suburbs not having power restored until 4pm on June 10.
A second power failure occurred at the same time (5.45pm) on June 11, lasting until 8.30pm and again some suburbs did not see power restored until 11pm that evening.
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On June 12, the coldest day on record for the year 2020 so far in Kempton Park, the power was again disconnected to the suburbs of Birch Acres, Terenure and others from 8am until 8.30pm, despite announcements from the department that electricity would be restored by 7pm.
In light of this cascade of failure it is reasonable to expect our metro to be able to communicate cause and measures for relief, but no such information was made available to the public timeously. In fact, the call centre was reported to be closed for maintenance during these times – a very suspicious arrangement for such critical and long-lasting failures.
It is therefore my wish to have this email forwarded to the head of your department, who is asked to please answer the following queries in regard to the state of electrical power in Kempton Park:
• Why are electrical outages such a common occurrence in the city?
Power outages are a common occurrence in all parts of the country given the infrastructure age and operating environment.
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• What data do you have regarding outage times and frequency? Can this data be made available to the public?
CoE keeps records of the operating that occurs on the grid. Connected to the grid are national key points and it is not always possible to share information regarding operations.
• What measures to effect maintenance are put into place by the city and what process of public participation has been followed to garner input from the affected communities?
CoE has a fully functional maintenance plan with input from all relevant stakeholders being taken into account.
• How does a private citizen proceed to lodge a complaint against the city for mismanagement of the electrical supply?
Private citizens may lodge a complaint through the municipal insurance division. I look forward to the department head’s response to these queries.
The answers in italics were provided by Themba Gadebe, spokesperson for the City of Ekurhuleni. However, Kempton Express? request for a breakdown of all the outages mentioned, was not replied to – Editor
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