While inclement weather conditions continue in parts of Gauteng, several areas in Johannesburg remain without power as City Power battles to attend to logged calls.

Sizwe Khoza from Lindhaven, Roodepoort, told TimesLIVE they have not had electricity since last Friday when the area experienced heavy disruptive rains that caused huge destruction in the area. Khoza said their lives have been interrupted.

“I had to take my two children to their granny’s house in Soweto. That was not part of our plans because we had planned to spend quality time with them since schools are closed,” he said.

Though he said he was sympathetic with City Power about the challenges and pressures they face with multiple outages across the city, he said five days was too much to not resolve their supply issues.

“You can see houses on the other side of the suburb have power and you wonder why they can’t fix our issue.”

Khoza said on Monday they were forced to throw away some food that had spoiled in the fridge. “Every day you hang on to hope power will be restored but it does not happen. If I had known we would go for so many days without power, I would have taken food to friends’ houses.”

Olivia Smith, 65, lives a few blocks from Khoza’s house. She said the power outage is making her miserable but she is not keen to live with relatives while the issue is sorted because she is scared of crime.

“Criminals are always on the lookout for houses where there is no-one at home. I don't want to take that chance. I will stay in this house with no electricity. I have a gas stove for cooking and heating water. I don’t look forward to waking up. This issue is affecting my happiness,” she said.

Smith said adding to their misery was the destruction of property caused by heavy rains last Friday. She said walls collapsed, trees were uprooted and roads were flooded. She said she was worried the city has not started with cleanup operations and feared more damage should heavy rains continue.

On Sunday, a handful of frustrated residents blockaded roads with burning tyres and rocks, saying they were tired of waiting for City Power. 

“This is the only language they understand. Protesting is the only way to get action,” one resident said. 

Public order police were called to clear the roads. 

On Tuesday City Power shared on Twitter its teams were working on multiple outages around Roodepoort.   

MMC for environment and infrastructure service councillor Michael Sun said City Power had deployed all available technical resources and adjusted working hours to deal with the electricity crisis unfolding in Johannesburg.

“The recent heavy rains and flooding coupled with stages 5 and 6 load-shedding mean we are effectively dealing with a crisis situation,” he said.

“City Power is rising to this unprecedented challenge with courage and focus. I have every confidence the technical strategy on the table will be effective. I am in constant communication with the City Power team to ensure we get to every outage without delay.”

Earlier this week, Sun said City Power was dealing with up to 1,000 active outages and 4,000 open calls reported by residents without power. He said this was a moving target as infrastructure damaged by flooding comes under pressure alongside the added dangers of load-shedding and cable theft.

“I have directed City Power’s executive to ensure the recovery process is communicated to councillors and the public,” Sun said. 

The MMC said he was concerned about the circulation of an unauthorised infographic bearing City Power’s logo.

Sun said on December 9 City Power issued an internal memo to its employees requiring a “disaster management” approach, which means it will go into crisis management and resolution mode when outage calls reach the 3,000 calls threshold.

“Regrettably, this memo was used to mislead the community that City Power had declared a state of disaster on behalf of the City of Johannesburg and was pulling back resources, which is not true.”

He said human resources and specific technical expertise have been pulled together in teams to stabilise the situation:

• all available electricians and assistants are being deployed to fault restorations with contractors sharing the workload;
• teams will attend to all outages from 6am to 6pm;
• area outages will continue to be attended to after 6pm with individual and isolated outages attended to by the day shift; and 
• top management will meet at 7am when required daily to regroup and resolve challenges.

“City Power is all hands on deck to deal with the range of issues facing it, from power restoration and cable faults to complex failing infrastructure and vandalism.”

TimesLIVE