Dark weekend for Corrie residents

Coronationville residents went without electricity during the weekend of July 7 because of a mini substation that burnt out.

“Residents called me to let me know that the pole in corner Harmony and Hamilton street was burning. We alerted the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) and the Emergency services and when they arrived, they realised that it was the substation that was on fire. It’s all to do with the overloading of the electricity with the illegal connections. The grid is unable to manage the overload. I really want to applaud City Power because they came to assess the situation, they literally came back in 48 hours with the new substation. The residents were really relieved about that because they were without electricity for about a day or two and they understood the situation,” said ward councillor, Genevieve Sherman.

According to one of the men who were loading the burnt substation,  the new substation is inaccessible and that if there is an overload on the grid, the new substation’s switch will trip and then it will reflect on their systems and City Power officials will be the only ones to switch it back on again. The old substation did not have this system, which is the reason it burnt out.

“The bottom line is that residents should safeguard what is theirs or the facilities that they use. The housing project for the people at Slovo is a provincial project and we as the City have asked them to give the project to us so that we can manage it, but now we do not have a say here. The living condition of the Coronationville residents have really become bad and at least once or twice a week they have outages. The only solution will be for the provincial government to start building the houses for those who qualify other than that it seems like a losing battle. The last time we removed the illegal connections, a few residents’ houses were stoned and we do not want to have a war, so that is why we are speaking to the relevant parties,” said the councillor.

The Church on the corner of Harmony and Hamilton was also broken into during those nights of darkness and the councillor mentioned that all their equipment was stolen. “We need to hold the provincial government accountable and this is the has to be the people who are affected in Coronationville and Slovo,” concluded councillor Sherman.

To log calls, contact the below entities:
Joburg Water: email: customerservice@jwater.co.za or call 011 688 1699 or SMS on 082 653 2143
City power: log using your mobile device: citypower.mobi
Joburg Roads Agency: hotline@jra.org.za or if urgent call 0860JOBURG -option 5.
For the A Re Sebetseng campaign, residents can call 087 357 1126 or email aresebetseng@pikitup.co.za
Emergency medical services or Johannesburg Metro Police Department on 011 3755 911

To contact your ward councillors:
Cllr Genevieve Sherman – Ward 69 on 073 543 9123
Cllr Basil Douglas – Ward 68 on 076 225 0542
Cllr Susan Stewart – Ward 82 on 071 253 3356