MMC and councillors empowered
Residents and business owners can look forward to fewer power outages over the next 10 years
“Residents and business owners can rest assured that they will experience fewer power outages over the next ten years.”
So said the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Finance, councillor Rabelani Dagada, on his recent tour of City Power‘s facilities and infrastructure in various areas of Johannesburg.
Dagada was accompanied by the MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, councillor Anthony Still. The tour was initiated by Dagada to familiarise himself with the capital projects of the power utility in order to assist with the allocation of capital expenditure (Capex) and operating expenditure (Opex) budgets.
Watchđź‘€: As MMC @Rabelani_Dagada speaks about the main purpose of why he is at @CityPowerJhb today. #CityPowerVisit ^LM pic.twitter.com/PLvTCb5VU1
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) November 29, 2016
Managing Director of City Power, Sicelo Xulu, gave a presentation that covered aspects such as operations, mission, achievements and challenges before the tour started. This was followed by a visit to the metering warehouse and control room, where Xulu and his team demonstrated the operations of the facility.
The tour included Pimville and Soweto, two areas that are of the worst-affected by illegal connections. Thereafter the councillors went to Groblerpark Extention 9 in Roodepoort, where the installation and operation of a prepaid smart meter was demonstrated.
Hand held unit is used to get information to record units used,& is transfered on @CityPowerJhb data base. #CityPowerVisit ^LM pic.twitter.com/lP9q4FdjXE
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) November 29, 2016
The tour also took them to the Kloofendal substation in Roodepoort, where upgrading is taking place, and to Sebenza in Kempton Park, where a new substation, said to be the biggest in Southern Africa, is being built. Work on this substation is expected to be completed by the end of next year.
At the Kloofendal substation, the project manager, Godfrey Mulaudzi, informed the councillors about which areas are being supplied with electricity.
Godfrey Mulaudzi project manager of the Kloofendal substation talking about which areas it provides electricity to. #CityPowerVisit ^LM pic.twitter.com/3C0vslDiGr
— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) November 29, 2016
Dagada said the tour was an eye-opener and added that he was humbled to know City Power contributed 10 per cent of South Africa’s energy. “City Power will play a fundamental role in achieving the 5 per cent economic growth envisaged by the Mayor. Economic growth requires a lot of electricity and if City Power’s infrastructure is not upgraded to capacity it will fail to provide the required energy – and that could adversely affect our service delivery targets,” Dagada said.
Councillor Still said he was also very impressed with City Power’s first-class engineering and security of power supply and that he – like Dagada – was convinced that power supply problems would be thing of the past for the next 10 years or more. He was, however, very concerned about the illegal electricity connections in the informal settlements and concluded by saying, “We have to think carefully of how we will deal with these areas in the future.”
Read more here:
Power outage as substation burns
