Residents’ and business owners’ emotions have reached boiling point.
For months now they have been experiencing sporadic and costly problems with their electricity due to a seemingly faulty electricity box on the corner of Generaal Pienaar Avenue and Ham Street and with every incident there is a tug of war between those who complain and City Power.
On 22 April residents once again experienced brief power cuts and surges and many residents lodged complaints, but City Power was tardy in their response.
The day after the surges the owner of one of the petrol stations in the street discovered extensive damage to her business. She prefers to stay anonymous but tells of her experience.
“Two of our surge protectors have blown. Our coffee machine, ice-cream machine and some lights are not working. Our CCTV cameras have been damaged and the electric doors to our shop are not working. To make matters worse the garage opposite us was burgled and the thieves allegedly parked their vehicle here and walked across the road. If our cameras worked we could have assisted the police in identifying the thieves,” says the service station owner.
She also complained about the bad service she had received. Early on the day she logged a complaint and when the technician eventually came out and tested the electricity box he told her that it was not City Power’s problem but hers. The petrol station’s head office earlier also dispatched an electrician who established that the voltage running through the building was 170V at one stage and 260V at another – the one too low and the other too high as the correct average is between 220V and 240V.
When she asked the City Power technician not to leave but to assist her, she was brushed off with a “leave me alone. I know what I am doing” as he left. She logged another complaint and according to her a team did arrive much later and finished work on the electricity box at around 8pm. This meant that something needed to be fixed and that the first technician did not do his job properly.
The petrol station across the street also suffered damage to their electricity distribution boards and had four petrol pumps not working for most of the day, which resulted in a loss of revenue.
One of the residents in the street, Francois van der Schyff was highly upset when he contacted the record.
According to Van der Schyff he suffered R76 000 worth of losses during the previous power surges in January. This time he was luckier. Only his motor gate’s chargers, one surge arrester plug and a day/night light sensor were damaged.
Van der Schyff, who is an electrician by trade, also tested the voltage running through his house and discovered it to be 375V, which is way above the desired average. He went to investigate while the City Power team was working on the electricity box and took photos. His assessment of the problem is that the earth phase in the electricity box burned out.
The Caxton offices’ generator was damaged to such an extent that it currently is not functional.
