Call centre to blame for poor responses to power failures

Democratic Alliance councillors in Region B (central Johannesburg) have been calling on City of Johannesburg to shut down its “non-functioning” centralised call centre.

“We want them to revert back to individual entities managing their own fault reporting and service delivery,” Ward 69 councillor Katja Naumann said on 7 July.

The councillors have been taking action after their Joburg-wards have been enduring a winter filled with power cuts and municipal service delivery failures. Many of these problems have not been resolved effectively because of the call centre’s operational problems.

“Thousands of residents have had to endure the frustrating and costly wait on the line only to be given even poorer service by uninformed call centre staff,” Naumann said.

“This dire situation has led to only the very urgent matters being reported. City Power has also made an ill-fated change towards a shift system. This system doesn’t allow for over-time and that means that there is no proper hand-over leading to cases falling between the cracks. Councillors have had to repeatedly step in and function as 24/7 ‘mini call centers’ in times of crisis.”

Naumann also shed light on the power failures most of Johannesburg’s suburbs have been experiencing lately. She said that it was perhaps worth noting that power failures lasting up to three days or more have been affecting every suburb in Ward 69 as well as almost every ward in the City of Johannesburg.

“The reason for these failures are varied,” she said.

“There has been no load-shedding this winter but the main supply from the Orlando power station to the Hursthill depot had tripped on several occasions leading to wide spread darkness. The aging infrastructure and an overloaded system as well as routine maintenance have exacerbated this situation. Despite numerous well-documented reports supplied to the City Power authorities, sub-stations continue to be unsecured leading to cable theft and vandalism.”

Regarding the manifold problems experienced in Westdene Naumann said that City Power confirmed that the only company tasked with reading electricity meters in the suburb is African Meter Readers. Linda Security, tasked by City Power to investigate cable theft admitted at a public meeting held in Westdene that no investigations had been conducted into the numerous incidents of cable theft in the area.

“Residents should be cautious of letting unidentified strangers onto their properties,” Naumann advised.

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