One step at a time for the community of Riverlea

On March 25, the residents of Riverlea sat down with City Power and the Acting Regional Director for Region B in a City Power Informative session at the Riverlea Recreational Hall.

After the protest that occurred about three weeks ago in the area, the acting regional director for region B, Monwabisi Sewedi has been sent into the community to try to fix the issues addressed in the memorandum.

The meeting was called to address the issue of recent electricity cuts, pre-paid meters, energy saving tips, reporting faults and vandalism.

City Power sent three of their men to address the issues in the community. Duma Zondi from the metering section, Amos Lamola from the revenue protection department and Tshepo Chuene, the senior liaison officer who were all there in the meeting.

According to Chuene, they have stopped the cut-offs, and the team will go back to Riverlea to implement the normalisation process. He said that those who have bridged meter boxes will receive a new meter at no charge.

Chuene said that the residents of Riverlea found a problem with them when they came three weeks ago to cut the electricity of houses in the neighbourhood.

“They say we did not communicate on time. So now we have agreed, we are saying look okay let’s give you a final chance, we come and we normalise if you bridged you won’t be penalised but when we come back in six months’ time or whenever we come back and find that you are bridged we will penalise you.”

The meeting came to an end with the agreement of City Power normalising the meters, making sure that the community can purchase their electricity and to come back and check that all meters are working.

Other meetings will be held to address the rest of the community’s grievances throughout the weeks to come.

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