This week’s question was:
Who should we contact to keep us updated on power and water outages? Should ward councillors be giving constant updates to residents?
Ward 117 councillor, Tim Truluck, answered:
The first thing that residents need to do is log the problem correctly.
At the moment, the best way to log a water problem is via customer@jwater.co.za. Always include an exact address and the nearest street corner.
For power outages, it is online via citypower.mobi. I always advise residents to log in and register on the site before you experience an outage. Like, do it now.
It is best to register using a tablet or PC. And you don’t have to input info such as account number – look for the asterisk sign that signifies required information. And note down, in a safe place, your password.
Once logged, for both water and power outages, you first need to find out if it is just your property or a couple of houses. Or is it an outage that affects a street, a portion of or a whole suburb, or even half of Joburg?
Most of us are now on WhatsApp, Twitter and/or Facebook. Use it to see if others are affected.
If it is a larger outage, then your residents associations and councillor will be aware of it. They will be contacting the depots and finding out what the problem will be.
Note each ward and area have different dynamics – for instance, in Parktown North, the residents association there has a hands-on on approach and I am only required to get involved if the outage is serious or difficult to resolve.
To stop people clogging up the system, the entities may stop issuing a reference number. These types of outages can typically last from two to six hours for power and six to 24 hours for water. If the problem is serious, it could continue for a few days to a week.
If it is just you or a couple of houses, once it is correctly logged, you need to wait before escalating. I would say six hours for electricity and a day for water. This is to allow the repair teams to do their job. In most cases, things get fixed within these times.
Once the time is up and nothing has happened, then you can contact your residents association and/or your councillor to escalate.
To escalate, the best way is via SMS, WhatsApp or email. You need to be clear and concise and put all the information in one message.
I always ask for a name, cell phone number, address, reference number, and a short description of the problem.
I can then easily cut and paste it into my City Power depot WhatsApp group or our Region B Joburg Water group for escalation.
Note that there are often many outages occurring at the same time. This will slow down the response time and result in longer outages.
I often liken these large outages to a hospital trying to deal with a bad accident with multiple injuries. They triage the injuries into groups of declining life-threatening severity – breathing, bleeding, breaks and burns. The breathing patients will be treated first and the breaks and burns will be done last.
Similarly, the more serious big area outages are sorted first, then the medium ones affecting smaller areas, and lastly, the little ones affecting one to 10-odd houses are dealt with. You will need to be patient while they are doing this.
Do you have a question for a ward councillor?
As a local newspaper, the Randburg Sun provides a platform for residents to learn about, understand and follow local government.
As an extension of that, there is a weekly column called Councillor’s Corner which is a platform for you, our readers, to voice your concerns or questions for ward councillors to respond to.
Different, willing, ward councillors will respond to a question each week.
Email your burning question to aimeed@caxton.co.za and let’s get the ball rolling.
