Some work has been done to make a live electricity cable less of a risk to residents in Johannesburg North, six months after it was installed. However, residents are still unhappy.
The cable overhanging Pritchard Street was installed as a temporary solution to a fault in the underground cable in December last year. It is now 3.5m high but was lower before people raised it because tall vehicles could not pass under. The meter box was also unsecured, and residents worried someone would be electrocuted or cable thieves would pounce on the easy target.
Also read: Residents say overhead cable installed by City Power in Johannesburg North is unsafe
Finally, City Power dispatched teams to tighten the cable closer to the poles on either side of the road ‘eliminating the possibility of anyone tripping or cables sitting in a pool of water during rainy days,’ spokesperson Isaac Mangena said. The cable now runs underground to the meter box as well, though the box is still unlocked and open.
“Our responsibility is to ensure that customers have lights while we are dealing with permanent solutions. Therefore, once lines that can be buried underground are available, the team will come back and install them. Once again, we sincerely apologise to all residents affected.”
Resident Richard Carr is unsatisfied with this. “What a makeshift job City Power has carried out,” he said. “The cabling is still strung across Pritchard Street. It is so frustrating. Let’s hope for a better result.”
Carr and resident Margot Fenner had complained before about how their logged faults were continuously closed while they waited for help that did not appear to be coming.
City Power could not confirm when the lines for the buried cable would be available. “Since the beginning of the year, City Power has been dealing with a backlog of outage calls, cases of cable theft and vandalism, and high stages of load-shedding. City Power also has over 500 plants that are out of service, which is causing further strain on our network,” Mangena added.
“In the past two months alone, the Randburg service delivery centre had more than 25 cases of vandalised mini-substations and transformers; mainly, the breakers, joints, and cables had to be replaced. These incidents pressure our material stock levels, human resources, and budget availability. Furthermore, delaying the clean-up projects we started in March where our teams revisited sites where a temporal solution was offered to restore the power supply.”
