EFF plans march to City Power offices over Alexandra power issues
The march is scheduled to take place on Monday, 27 July.
Electricity transformer that blew up and caught fire, which left residents living at the corner of Amukelani and John Malatji streets without electricity for the past 3 months, 21 July 2020. Picture: Nigel Sibanda
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is planning to march to City Power’s offices on Monday, 27 July, however, both local and metro police confirmed to Alex News that they have not been made aware of the proposed march.
Alexandra police station spokesperson Sergeant Simphiwe Mbatha said: “The march may be linked to what happened on Tuesday, 21 July. City Power came and removed all the illegal electricity connections. Other than that, we were not aware.”
The community of Alexandra has been experiencing electricity issues with some households reporting that they have not had electricity for over two weeks.
City Power also went on an operation to remove illegal connections in Tsutsumani Ext 7.
During this operation, illegal connections were cut off to close to 200 homes on the day.
Illegal connections to close to 200 homes were cut off during an operation in Ext. 7 Tsutsumani Alexandra today.
The operation was supported by @JoburgMPD @SAPoliceService and @SANDFCorpEvents
This follows several outages due to overloading on the network.@CityofJoburgZA pic.twitter.com/r5EJ2bSB8M— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) July 21, 2020
According to the public relations councillor for the EFF in Johannesburg, Moshe Kgoshi Kabudi Mphahlele, the aim of the march to the City Power offices is so that electricity issues the community is faced with, are addressed.
Mphahlele said the first meeting point for the march will be Setjwetla Silvertown circle at 9am, followed by the second meeting point at Alexandra police station at 15th Avenue at 11am.
The third meeting point will be at the councillors’ offices at 8th Avenue at 1pm and the fourth and last meeting point will be at City Power offices in Kew at 3pm.
Earlier this month, 50 families in Alexandra were left homeless after their shacks were gutted in a fire.
Johannesburg emergency medical services spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said they responded to the fire, inside an abandoned building in the township.
On their arrival, firefighters found 50 shacks on fire.
Maludzi said 30 of the shacks were inside the building while 20 others were outside.
According to the residents, the power was off due to load reduction in Johannesburg, and when the power returned, the fire started.
This article first appeared on Alex News and was republished with permission.
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