The mystery behind Joburg’s closed tickets

Although Albert Einstein is associated with this quote, there’s no convincing evidence that he said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”.

The words come to mind when trying to cope with crazy situations in Joburg, where faults must be logged with a reference number before repairs are carried out.

Anyone who has had their City Power ticket erroneously closed without resolution risks being caught in a loopy cycle of relogging and having the next ticket closed, then relogging again, indefinitely.

Please don’t relog. You may drive yourself and your ward councillor insane. That’s what’s happening in this soggy weather.

Why does City Power cancel tickets when the logged fault has not been rectified? Is there method in this madness?

ALSO READ: CoJ’s ‘abuse of power’ lambasted in Johannesburg High Court

There have been numerous explanations over the years, but none grasps the crux. In November 2023 a “Close calls report” was tabled in council, acknowledging a communication problem yet trying to correct it with opaque explanations.

In the same year, various Caxton newspapers said calls are closed when a customer logs multiple tickets for the same outage, or:

“Where there is an area outage affecting more customers and supply has been restored, all calls that are related to that area are grouped and closed.

“When customers of the same street/neighbourhood, affected by an outage, log tickets for the same fault.”

This week, in answer to complaints from councillors about wrongly closed tickets, City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena trotted out familiar reasons, none of which is applicable in most of the recent cases.

ALSO READ: Load reduction remains suspended amid planned January maintenance

He offered one glimmer of hope:

“We are working on ensuring the ‘call closed’ messages to customers also explain why”. Working on it? Still? This same issue was in the 2023 Closed calls report tabled in council: “City Power is considering system improvements where the system will be able to alert the consumer that a call is being grouped rather than indicating it is closed as a result.”

Yet not much changed. Messages received now by fed-up customers include: “closed”, “cancelled” or “completed”, without explanation, mostly when the job has not been done.

What’s missing is the explanation for closure.

City Power has long known that improvement is needed in communication at this point in the chain. Councillors have repeatedly told them. Sending cryptic nonsensical messages to folks who have been without power for a week or more infuriates customers, so they log again and demand answers from their “angazi” councillors.

ALSO READ: City Power cracks down on R200m unpaid government bills

Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Nuts.

To quote from the 1967 movie, Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”.

Customers need short, simple, clear explanations when a call is closed for whatever reason. Without his communication, disgruntled residents assume malicious or fraudulent intent.

Is someone trying to sabotage the system, or claim payment for work not done? It cannot be difficult to devise a programme which demands that whoever sends a “closed” message must choose from a range of clearly understandable reasons.

Just do it. Today. For our sanity.

NOW READ: No electricity for parts of Joburg this weekend as City Power battle cable theft, vandalism