City Power and telecommunications provider Vumatel have teamed up to work together in Blairgowrie in an effort to minimise power outages in the suburb.
This follows a major power outage on 1 February which lasted more than two days. Read previous story: Outage crisis in Blairgowrie
The two entities have agreed to implement a number of resolutions to minimise electricity supply disruptions to the residents and ensure the safety of contractors trenching in the area.
City Power said in a statement that they had reached an agreement with Vumatel, following a series of unplanned power cuts in the area resulting from damaged electricity cables while Vumatel was trenching to install fibre optic cables.
“These ageing cables are susceptible to damage and pose a safety hazard to contractors who may be electrocuted,” said Hloni Motloung.
According to the statement, Vumatel has made an undertaking to immediately cease any digging activity in the area for the next few days until the company has secured cable locators that will assist the contractors in pinpointing the exact position of the cables in order to minimise cable damage.
Both Vumatel and City Power will establish a joint communications team to oversee and facilitate communication with affected residents in cases of unplanned outages.
City Power has also pledged to improve its turnaround times to repair damaged cables and will be working closely with the contractors who operate in Blairgowrie and Hurlingham until the trenching phase is complete.
City Power further urged residents who still experience power outages to log their queries on their Twitter accounts @citypowerJHB.
Ward 102 Councillor David Potter explained that during the outage from 1 until 4 February there were at least four other known medium voltage outages in other suburbs that were under the management of the Randburg City Power depot.
“These outages took between 10 to 60 hours to repair,” explained Councillor Potter.
He explained/emphasised that for six years, the Randburg Depot had managed challenges and relied completely on contractors to fix issues on their network.
“Residents supplied by City Power, especially the Randburg depot, need to get used to outages. The network is old, gets vandalised on purpose and by accident and City Power simply does not have the resources to attend speedily to the outages,” he concluded.
Details: City Power, 011 490 7607; Ward 102 Councillor David Potter, 082 885 9688.
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