Saaiman and Glover upgrade announced

Ward 97 councillor Jacques Hoon held a public meeting on March 24 at the Phelindaba Chamber in the Roodepoort Civic Centre. Some of the people in attendance included local residents, stakeholders and representatives from City Power.

The main topic on the agenda was the upgrade of the Saaiman and Glover Street distributor. Vusimusi Fahla the stakeholder officer at City Power said the project will strengthen Glover’s distribution capacity. “We are encountering more power outages caused by theft. We will install the ones that will provide back-up power. The Glover distributor has minimum supply but we will be strengthening that. The project is budgeted for R6,5 million.”

He said the project will begin as soon as a community liaison officer (CLO) has been appointed, “The CLO’s contract is between the council and Crum to advertise as well as the requirements of that person. We will do interviews and choose the right candidate.” Fahla shared that once work on the project begins, it will take two months to complete.

This is part of City Power’s plan to roll out and replace old infrastructure. Many of the issues raised by residents included vandalism of power boxes, overloaded substations which, in turn, cause frequent power outages, and cable theft.