A day after JRA’s virtual meeting, it was the turn of the city’s electricity utility to face the Region C public.
General Manager of City Power’s Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre, Sibusiso Xulu answered questions from frustrated residents, on November 17. There was no slide show or presentation done by the City Power official, who got straight to the business of explaining the entities challenges before fielding questions and suggestions.
Xulu began by stating that City Power’s R8m budget for this financial year had already been depleted due to infrastructure theft and vandalism. This budget restrain has led to a shortage of materials and staff, creating the delay in restoration times. Recent rains have left technicians unable to test cables and once faults are found, waiting times are extended as technicians must drive to Booysens to collect materials as stocks at the Hamburg depot can not be replenished at the same rate at which they are used to make repairs.
Understanding the challenges, Michael Steyn, speaking as a member of the Honeydew Community Police Forum and Panorama Residents Association(PRA) inquired about locking mechanisms to prevent tampering. Steyn added that too often technicians bridged connections in effort to apply a quick fix. Xulu stated that bridging of connections was not allowed and welcomed the community’s collaboration in securing electrical infrastructure.
The most frequent complaint for those suffering with outages is the communication and updates received from City Power. Constania Village Residents Association’s Karen Poole urged the utility to honest with residents about restoration times. Poole argued that residents would prefer knowing that an outage would be lengthy instead of living in blind hope that the electricity would return soon.
The City Power General Manager took several other questions on the electrification of informal settlements, fault detection systems and proactive measures to resolve the crisis. Some questions, Xulu admitted, where not under his jurisdiction and would have to take the issues back to senior management for them to address. Another public meeting was scheduled for November 28 for City Power to address written submissions.
