Kya Sand’s business owners fed up

Numerous businessmen have voiced their anger against City Power’s slow pace at solving cable theft problems, which they claim affects their businesses.

According to business owner Clive Robertson, Kya Sand has a long history of power outages, cable theft, cable faults and poor service from City Power.

“South Africa has already been forced to try and cope with Eskom’s load shedding. But it is totally unacceptable for the businesses in Kya Sand to suffer these continued power outages due to cable theft or other faults,” Robertson argued.

He claimed that he lost R1 million due two power outages in February alone and added that they have requested the public protector to investigate the power issues in Kya Sand.

“We, the business community of Kya Sand, feel that there is zero concern for our businesses and our welfare. We require you as City Power to prove us wrong and demonstrate that you are capable of delivering the service that you should already be delivering,” Robertson demanded.

Ward Councillor 96 Matome Mafokwane commented, “Kya Sand, Waterford and Riverbend have in the past five years been identified as hotspots in as far as cable theft is concerned. Business leaders in Kya Sand have on many occasions sat down with bosses of City Power to look for lasting solutions to this madness – I also participated in those meetings.”

Another Ward Councillor Ralf Bittkau weighed in on this issue again and in January Randburg Sun reported on the same cable theft issues.

Bittkau remarked,”Business owners in this area have every right to be upset as it was noted about two years ago that the single cable feeding this industrial area is totally insufficient. Two years down the line nothing has happened and, on top of it, the management of City Power, when approached by the owners of businesses in the area, do not even bother to respond. But I can only surmise that the management of City Power take their cues from the MD and the upper management as these same persons do not even bother to attend Section 79 meetings, especially, such as when they present their annual reports.”

City Power’s manager of field services in Randburg David Makoni explained, “On Friday, 19 February 2015 we had a meeting with the representatives of Kya Sand association where all plans were shown to them what has been done so far and what will be done in the next phase.”

Details: David Makoni City Power’s manager Randburg 011 793 1105/7;

083 399 4376; Ward councillor 101 Ralf Bittkau 011 462 4331;

Ward councillor Matome Mafokwane 011 704 0039.