Load-shedding, sabotage, theft and vandalism are constant issues faced by City Power which were discussed at Melrose Arch on May 4.
Speaking at AMDEC House, Ward 74 councillor Belinda Echeozonjoku said the meeting was to educate the community about the power entity. “Power outages are extended after load-shedding in the ward. City Power’s turnaround time is not quick enough which is why the meeting was necessary to help people understand how the different procedures work within an entity.”
Echeozonjoku added that she chose to have the meeting in Melrose because it falls under the Alexandra township service delivery depot. She said residents who pay high rates and taxes in the surrounding area of the township were not getting their money’s worth. A Melrose North resident Candice Kapelushnik noted that the meeting was helpful because it was an opportunity for her to interact directly with City Power, which has a better understanding of the power challenges faced in the community.
City Power weighs in
City Power’s management stakeholder Tshepo Chuene said the entity was aware of the recurring problems faced by ward 74.
“We are not here to make excuses but to account specifically in this ward and give you a better view of the challenges you as residents are facing. The challenges we are faced with include theft, vandalism and sabotage and are aware that there could be a possibility that some of the crimes to our infrastructures are carried out by people who work for us because the problems are well coordinated.”
The entity’s acting maintenance manager, Simphiwe Makapula said parts of ward 74’s electricity were fed from the Alexandra Township and Cydna power station which was powered by another power station in Sebenza.
“The two power stations were load-shedded remotely at the same time. The problem comes in when electricity is supposed to come back on because an inrush current occurs, the two power stations have to be lit manually individually which causes a delay in switching areas on because the process cannot be rushed as there will be a trip.”
Chuene added that load-shedding is a disturbance in terms of planned maintenance because the entity’s team struggled to navigate around it, “Load-shedding means City Power doesn’t have control of the network and we cannot find faults if needs be. Load-shedding is also an opportunity for criminals to feast on the network for criminal activities, because they are aware of when the power goes off and is expected to come back on.”
He stated that plans of City Power included a project which involved ward councillors which would outline the trajectory of the entity.
“City Power also wants to stop being overly reliant on contractors, part of the issue from communities is the quality of work they do. Some contractors deliberately do shady work so they can go back to fix the same problem and be paid for it; hence we have a new position in our organogram called quality assurance which checks work done by contractors to see if it is up to standard before they are paid.”
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