City Power and community agree to collaborate
The key to fewer power outages is discussed.
Local stakeholders have agreed to work together to improve access to City Power infrastructure.
This at a meeting between City Power officials, Ward 88 councillor Nicolene Jonker and residents associations from the area, at Marks Park Sports Club on May 17.
City Power technicians often face difficulties accessing substations when responding to a fault, causing lengthy delays and prolonged outages.
“One of the most common reasons is not having the correct keys for the locks, either delaying the repair while the keys are located, or the technician simply abandons the call out,” Jonker said.
Michelle Wecke, a resident said, “Delays in restoring power are detrimental to my business as I work from home, especially when also trying to work around load shedding.” Another resident Annekie Zeiler, spoke about how during extended black outs she ‘really fears criminal elements during outages that sometimes last hours and hours, even the streets are dark, its scary’.
Jonker would convene a group of community representatives including the Fairland Community Policing Forum and various residents associations to work with City Power for local authorities to keep keys for their substations.
This would enable faster access to a substation as the keys, held by the locally identified group or security company, would be available on request.
Also discussed was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between City Power and stakeholders which would be finalised this week, and would empower residents associations and others to be legally allowed to maintain the infrastructure of substations and be custodians of the spaces.
The benefit would be less downtime when there was a fault at a substation and would enable technicians to respond to more call outs.
Another issue discussed was the theft of fuses from sub-stations as access by criminals was easy when sub-stations were left open after the locks of the gates had been broken to gain access.
This further compounded the length of power outages. Allegations were made during the meeting that some contractors stole fuses and sold them back to City Power.
Bucks Badenhorst of City Power said he looked forward to working with the community to improve service delivery to the area.
Badenhorst requested residents to please report theft of infrastructure or damage to sub-stations via the anonymous call hotline 0800 00 25 87 or via email anticorruption@tip-offs.com
