Several roads closed in Roodepoort due to electricity protest

Residents who have been without electricity for days now in parts of Roodepoort, west of Joburg, on Wednesday morning blockaded roads with burning tyres and rocks. 

Affected roads include:

• the corner of Corlett Avenue and Progress Road;
• South Road and Corlett Avenue; and
• Nassau Street. 

One of the protesters, Tshepo Makola from Witpoortjie, said they have been without power since last Friday. “We are tired of waiting. We've been patient enough and now is the time to be radical,” he said. 

Areas that were without power include parts of Lindhaven, Witpoortjie, Grobler Park and Honeydew.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said City Power had beefed up resources in different service delivery centres (SDCs) to respond to possible outages due to the heavy storms and flooding.

He said on Monday most of the outage calls that were logged in their system were from areas of Roodepoort and Hursthill. 

“The outages are a result of the impact of the recent heavy storms, compounded by higher stages of load-shedding, where our teams are divided between responding to the maintenance calls or restoring power after every two-hour load-shedding,” Mangena said.

The impact of load-shedding on their infrastructure has also been huge, with the wear-and-tear increasing with every bout of rolling blackouts, he said.

“While we anticipate more challenges with the rain pounding across our service areas, our teams — including contractors who have been working hard to address most of the backlogs — are on standby in all the SDCs, ready to respond.

“We appeal for patience and co-operation from our customers during this time of challenges.”

Residents also took to social media to voice their frustration:

TimesLIVE