Power outages addressed

Residents of Princess, lower Witpoortjie, Lindhaven, and surrounds have been subject to numerous prolonged power outages over the past three weeks.

Reports have surfaced that the frequent widespread outages were caused by a contractor working on a new housing development in Princess, in the vicinity of Rothchild and South roads, and the Roodepoort Record decided to investigate.

According to the CEO of JIDMAC Construction, Ian Coetzee, the company is currently in the beginning phases of the development of Princess Park, a massive housing development that will consist of more than 700 residential units.

“There have been some challenges,” says Coetzee. “But we would like to assure the community that JIDMAC Construction was in no way responsible for the widespread electricity outages.

“We did accidentally damage two smaller electricity cables, which we reported correctly, and which was promptly fixed by City Power.

“The larger outages in the area are due to problems with City Power’s 33KV lines, which we have nothing to do with.”

Nevertheless, reports on social media, some emanating from City Power, placed the blame for frequent and widespread electricity outages in the area directly at the door of JIDMAC.

In an attempt to address the allegations, and to establish a better working relationship with City Power and the local community, JIDMAC called a public meeting on May 14, where Coetzee outlined the scope of the Princess Park project, and explained challenges encountered thus far.

Among the challenges that contractors on the ground face is the placement of underground services that are not indicated, or incorrectly indicated on maps provided by the City of Joburg (CoJ), according to which the entire project was designed.

“Engineers use these maps provided by CoJ to design developments taking into account where the underground services like electricity cables, stormwater, and sewerage services run. If these are incorrectly indicated on the maps, it causes massive problems for contractors on the ground, and these accidents are bound to happen.

“I assure the public that we do not damage infrastructure on purpose. It only causes problems and unnecessary delays, which we cannot afford.”

Coetzee adds that with any project of this scope, some mistakes are inevitable, but has committed himself to swift action to remedy anything that may go wrong.

“People have to understand that we are not one of those developers that build, sell off the units, and move on. The units in Princess Park are not for sale. They are strictly residential rental units. Thus, we have a large stake in this area.

“We are fully committed to uplifting the area, even taking on projects that are beyond the scope of what is expected of us, like fixing roads, installing curbs, and building sidewalks.

“As JIDMAC, we will work with City Power and the community to ensure that everything runs as efficiently as possible.”

City Power officials who attended the meeting did raise some questions regarding who was responsible for the damage to the 33KV electricity cables. They agreed to engage further with JIDMAC and endeavoured to, regardless of who was responsible, work together with the developers going forward to ensure that such disruptions are avoided in future.

According to David Makoni, Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre’s acting general manager, City Power welcomes JIDMAC’s efforts to constructively address the recent electricity outages, and to collaborate with the entity in minimising further disruption to the electricity supply.