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Residents stage protest after second power outage this weekend

Residents of Northcliff‚ Roosevelt Park and Risidale blocked off a section of Beyers Naude Road on Sunday morning after waking up to no power in the area.

The area‚ in Johannesburg's Region B‚ is serviced by the Roosevelt Park substation‚ and was experiencing its second power outage for the weekend after a blackout left residents in the dark for several hours on Friday night through to Saturday morning.

Sunday's outage was due to a transformer failure at the substation.

The area has been plagued by outages over the past few years which included an outage lasting several days last year.

Sunday's blockade saw the mayor of Johannesburg‚ Herman Mashaba‚ arrive to attempt to diffuse residents tensions.

"This substation is 50 to 60 years old and cannot meet the demand of an area that is expanding in size and density‚" he said.

Mashaba said R80 million had been budgeted to upgrade and improve the substation.

He asked residents to be patient saying the problem could not be fixed overnight.

The upgrading of the substation was expected to begin within months and would take at least two years to complete.

MMC for Environment and Infrastructure‚ Anthony Still‚ said contractors had been identified and appointed and "work would begin soon".

Mashaba said one of the main problems experienced by the city was the lack of skills within various departments.

"I have been shocked by what I see in departments...we are in the process of doing a skills audit of our 33‚000 employees to ensure that we have qualified people to do the work needed to be done.

"In the past there was a system of patronage...we will remove people who are not qualified. This is not about being mean‚ it's about having the right people for the job‚" he said.

The mayor and Still committed themselves to looking into installing a generator at the area's water tower to ensure that even when a power outage was experienced‚ the areas water supply wouldn't be affected.

Mashaba said public meetings would be held and newsletters would be circulated to keep residents abreast of developments at the substation.

Technicians indicated that power would be fully restored to the area by 6pm.

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