Why City Power can not keep the lights on – the hard truth

The greater Florida area has been experiencing regular power outages over the past few weeks.

According to City councillor David Dewes, City Power’s band-aid approach has come back to haunt them in a big way.

“The dismal leadership of Noel Maso, recently promoted, has plunged the greater Florida area into a crisis. Serious lack of budget, essential spares not being available, critical maintenance not undertaken and grossly understaffed Region C City Power, eventually have forced head office to access emergency funds to deal with the crisis.

“Current budget has dried up and emergency funds had to be accessed to replace major network cables from the major distribution point at Florida Lake to Florida Glen and Len Rutter substations. The Florida Glen line has been down for more than a year and the Len Rutter line for a few weeks. This requires the utility to back-feed, which places reticulation under tremendous strain and now causes all the outages,” said Dewes.

He said the current shift system of splitting 24 hours into four different shifts, with a complete lack of qualified staff, is also compounding the repair turnaround time. Contractors have to be used more often than not and the majority’s work is “substandard”, resulting in repeated breakdowns.

“A large percentage of qualified staff already resigned and have not been replaced. Having to maintain the ageing infrastructure without sufficient spares and enough personnel has placed tremendous pressure on existing staff who crisis-manage each day. It will definitely take its toll, if not addressed immediately.

Florida outages explained by City Power

“To compound the already desperate situation, cable and component theft has got completely out of hand. Addressing a media conference recently MD Nkanyiso Msomi blatantly lied to residents of Johannesburg by telling them innovative technology had been installed to prevent cable theft. He should have addressed the real issue, being that his risk-management unit is completely under-performing and that allegations are rife that certain individuals within the department themselves are involved in theft,” said Dewes.

“Everybody knows that major cable theft is not committed by the common thief, but by a well-organised syndicate that purchases stolen, specialised switchgear that costs over R40 000 to replace. Surely a crack team of qualified investigators could break the theft cycle by keeping proper tabs on some contractors – who are already implicated – and gathering crucial intelligence from arrested cable thieves. A properly managed risk unit will immediately secure vulnerable substations and infrastructure with access control and pepper gas alarms. All over the city evidence of unlocked infrastructure and inadequate locking mechanisms is prevalent and nothing is being done about it,” he said

“Then we wonder why we spend tens of millions replacing stolen infrastructure, when not even the basics could be done right. Absolutely absurd!

“Reality is there is no political will and City Power completely lacks the expertise to turn around this grave situation. Only a DA-run Johannesburg will address corruption, provide uninterrupted essential services and halt cadre deployment,” Dewes concluded.

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