Municipal issues are reported daily, and for some areas, the issues are reoccurring frequently. The constant problems warrant an understandable anger towards the City of Johannesburg’s municipal entities, and lately, City Power has been seen on the chopping block the most.
Ward 70 councillor, Caleb Finn, fittingly described the City Power problems as ‘the perfect storm’, explaining that electricity issues are not uncommon at this time of year because the cold weather increases the demand for electricity, which leads to more technical issues, and when you add load reduction and load-shedding to the mix, it just seems like one problem after the next.
Caleb, like several other CoJ ward councillors, has been inundated with City Power issues. Unfortunately, the councillors can only do so much and rely on City Power to provide updates and feedback just as much as the residents, so when they get all of the flack for an entity’s wrongs, it causes a lot of frustration.
With his frustration nearing its peak, Caleb released a statement detailing everything he knows about the issues currently being experienced in City Power. He expressed his confusion at the fact that City Power has reportedly taken the decision not to make use of contractors as ‘first responders’ to outages, and new rules have been put in place about the process of attending to outages. “All calls now have to be assessed by a City Power technician first, who must decide on what repair is required, they must then order the material and collect the material which they must then give to a contractor to carry out the repair,” read Caleb’s statement. City Power has been heavily reliant on contractors in the past, so their internal staff numbers have lessened over the years with only a few technicians on duty every shift, leading to longer waiting times.
City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, said the electricity entity will, however, be increasing contractor capacity to augment resources in City Power depots from 4 June. This is reportedly to ensure City Power deals with the backlogs and ensures security of supply. “The increase in capacity of contractors and the internal technicians will assist in reducing the backlogs and ensure a quick turnaround to outage calls going forward,” added the MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Mpho Moerane.
These changes seem to have increased the City Power backlog, and unfortunately, it seems the biggest challenges are presenting themselves with the ‘low-voltage outages’ which refer to a single house or a few houses without power. “The area outages are relatively unaffected by the current challenges,” said Caleb. He further explained that while he has escalated the low-voltage outages as he receives them, City Power seems to be overwhelmed and is neglecting to give him feedback on smaller outages.
The Ward 70 councillor concluded his statement by saying that he is working as fast as he can to attend to all of the messages he is receiving from residents, but he also needs to make sure he gives enough attention to his other duties, so it may take a while but he will answer.
Caleb recommended escalating your issues (after they have been reported to City Power and the waiting period has passed), directly to the Mayor Geoff Makhubo, or MMC Mpho Moerane. Escalations to the MMC’s office can be directed to 082 784 5535, by emailing mphomoerane@joburg.org.za, or by Tweeting to @MphoMoerane. Escalations to the Mayor can be sent to geoffreym@joburg.org.za or by Tweeting to @GeoffMakhubo.
