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Lenasia South residents accuse City Power of ‘lying’ about outage updates
Meanwhile Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse seemed to be missing in action as Lenasia South residents felt the excruciating pain of darkness.
Photo: iStock
Lenasia South residents have accused City Power of sharing misleading messages on Twitter about the power outage in the suburb.
The community has been left without electricity for over thirty hours, with no indication from City Power about when electricity would be restored.
Power outage
The suburb was plunged into darkness on Saturday, following the end of load shedding in the area.
Since then, the updates by City Power have angered and frustrated residents who took to social media complaining about children not being able to study for exams, rotting food in fridges, being unable to charge their mobile devices and being forced to buy generators at exorbitant prices to keep the lights on.
ALSO READ: ‘Where’s Phalatse?’ – Lenasia South struggles without power
Updates
In the last update shared by the utility, it said the cause out of the outage was yet to be determined.
“While the team was busy with restoration process, it tripped on Eskom’s side affecting Lenasia South. City Power is awaiting Eskom team to arrive on site to investigate the cause of the outage. ETR (estimated time of restoration) will be communicated upon arrival to site.”
This message was the same rhetoric that regurgitated by City Power on Sunday night when it claimed that 90% of electricity had been restored.
“90% power has been restored, 10% will remain off until repairs are done. ETR will be communicated in due course,” City Power said.
However, residents on the ground painted a different picture and accused the struggling utility of lying.
“I’m so tired of these useless updates. We will never know exactly what happened and what keeps on happening to power in Lenasia South because you don’t provide feedback when asked. You lie and provide cryptic answers,” tweeted DKNY_7.
Nomandlozi said: “Stop ignoring Lenasia South residents, at least continue lying to us”.
“Excuse me liars, it’s been over 33 hours that Lenasia South have been without power. 90% were not restored as per your misleading post. Kids have exams and we have work. Our food is spoilt. ETR please,” tweeted Ridwana Cajee.
Where’s the Jobug Mayor?
Meanwhile Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse seemed to be missing in action as residents felt the excruciating pain of the darkness.
Last week, African Independent Congress’ Margaret Arnolds said Phalatse should not worry about the motions of confidence brought against her if she is doing her job well.
“If she does her job well, we won’t need to bring these motions. Mpho Phalatse has failed the residents of the City of Joburg. Services are not being delivered, they lied to the City and said there is money in the City and then expect us to approve a R2 billion loan.”
“It’s not about us bargaining with anyone, the minorities have just had enough because there is no service delivery,” she told Newzroom Afrika on Thursday evening.
Reaction
Lenasia South residents have echoed Arnolds sentiment saying she has the small suburb, south of Johannesburg.
“We’d be more shocked if we actually saw her working for the City instead of attending elite events. How does this help the City? Its citizens? Fix things? Get things done? So, you live the high life while we suffocate under your blanket of inadequacy,” tweeted Pskov crumpled.
ALSO READ: Lenasia outage: Blame game between City Power, Eskom as residents remain the dark
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