Rosettenville Extension residents were left frustrated as a result of having no electricity for at least five days last week.
Victoria, Melba and Lang streets were affected by the power going on and off.
Ward 56 councillor Michael Crichton shared the residents’ frustrations. “Residents have had to continue surviving without electricity. There have been at least five streets in Rosettenville Extension that have been badly affected by these sudden power outages. “Many of the residents have complained about the outage spoiling their food and also damaging their appliances due to City Power not being able to resolve this problem,” he said.
The councillor tried to escalate the problem, in the process contacting MMC for Environment, Service Delivery and Infrastructure, City Power and the mayor’s office in vain.
“These outages have directly impacted on the residents’ pockets, not only are residents trying to survive the lockdown with minimal income, but they also have to deal with replacing damaged goods in addition to throwing out spoiled food, and food is a necessity during these difficult times.
“We have pursued this matter by sending an official letter to the Chief Whip of Council’s Office via the office of the DA’s Chief Whip. We will ensure that our residents’ issues are noted and resolved as the DA is passionate about serving the people of Johannesburg,” explained councillor Crichton.
Some of the reference numbers were: CP2528636 and CPWEB2707272 in Victoria Street, CPWEB2707408 in Melba Street and #2531067 in Lang Street.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said they are aware of the outages that have plagued Rossettenville in recent times.
“Needless to say during winter we experience overloading of our network which often leads to unplanned outages. “Rossettenville has been identified as one of the hot spots of illegal connections in the City, where home owners and businesses have either connected themselves illegally or bridged the meters. This is over and above the informal settlements in the area,” said Mangena.
“It’s also a suburb with an increased mushrooming of backyard rooms which exacerbate the situation of overloading. A few days ago this problem was exacerbated by a cable that was stolen. “A new piece of cable was installed and the circuit was split into two to share the load to avoid trips. The outages raised by the councillor were due to those factors,” explained Mangena.
He also mentioned that last month they issued a statement indicating that due to the threat posed by overloading on City’s infrastructure, they will rotate the areas affected by the overloading, which Rossettenvile is part of.
“The communication was sent to the residents and councillors including this complainant. The expectation is that they will tell the customers on decisions taken by the City or its departments.
“Outages are also reported through the call centre where it’s registered and technicians dispatched. From the complaint it seems there were only two reference numbers from the whole of the community claimed as affected.
“However, we believe this query would have been best dealt with at City Power by technicians and their managers instead of the MMC and the mayor where it was taken to,” he said.
