Residents in two Johannesburg suburbs detail effects of extended power outages

Residents in various Johannesburg suburbs have shared their pain and frustration of lengthy power outages affecting their areas recently and the struggle to get answers from the city. 

Bromhof and Montgomery Park have been among a slew of suburbs that have experienced outages lasting for anything between 12 hours to 120 hours in recent weeks. 

City Power has blamed the extended power cuts on cable theft and vandalism.

Bromhof is supplied by the North Riding substation and Montgomery Park by the Roosevelt Park substation.

Bromhof resident Jeff Levin is among those affected.

“On Monday at midnight we were off for 46 hours. The power went off for load-shedding and it never came back. It came back on Wednesday,” he said.

“Then we had power as normal, with load-shedding in between, and on Saturday morning at 4am it went off again and it's still off. So we've been off for [about] 57 hours and in the past six-and-a-half days that gives us about 113 hours of no power.”

Levin shared residents' frustration at the ongoing outages and poor communication during that time. He also accused City Power of lying about the causes of the long outages and the estimated time of restoration.

He and other residents criticised the lack of urgency by City Power in resolving the issue, saying only a few contractors were sent to the area more than 24 hours after the outage started.

Levin painted a dire picture of the effect of lengthy power cuts on his complex and the area. Food had to be thrown out, families could not prepare hot meals or prepare children adequately for school.

“Mine is the complex where this young girl died. A week before, another lady died. It's the same complex where there's another lady who's on an inverter for oxygen as well and it breaks me. There's also an old lady who lives across from me who hasn't had a cup of tea in three days and must be 80 years old.

“There are children running around, their parents can't afford to take them out for dinner. They haven't had a hot meal for days or a shower.”

Residents have apparently considered protests in the area, following in the footsteps of neighbouring ward 88 Montgomery Park and Roosevelt Park.

Last week residents braved the cold weather to protest in front of the Roosevelt substation on Beyers Naudé Drive. The residents were protesting against poor service delivery, with resident Michael O'Donovan telling TimesLIVE about the general neglect in both areas for more than a decade.

“Montgomery Park and Roosevelt [Park] have been severely neglected for a long time and it shows in the potholes, water leaks and breakdowns in electricity infrastructure.

“It was the outages, not the load-shedding, that catalysed the grievances. Our rates have gone up but we haven't had investment in the area for more than 15 years,” he said.

“We don't have roads maintenance, we don't have anything but the occasional repair of potholes. People are getting frustrated.”

Like Bromhof, O'Donovan said outages lasted anywhere between a day to three days. The longest was for 50 hours while the latest occurred on Saturday and lasted for 36 hours.

City Power confirmed the outage, blaming it on cable theft. The entity said power has been restored.

Bromhof ward councillor Ralf Bittkau said he was aware of the outage and it was caused by theft of a 40m cable.

“Cable theft is rampant in the area and it's the third time in two weeks there have been lengthy power outages,” he said.

“You'll also notice that in the area in the past week or so we had about three incidents of vandalism of minisubs in one day and that has contributed to the extended power outage. We're now working on this cable theft replacement and our ETR is just before 4pm.”

City Power said at 4.32pm on Monday the power supply had been restored in Bromhof, Sonneglans and surrounding areas.

It said on May 31, a Northriding 11kV substation  tripped after cable theft, affecting parts of Bromhof and Sonneglans.

“While working on repairs the team found another fault and had to order more material, including the 40-metre stolen cable.

“It is worth mentioning that there were an additional three incidents of vandalism of City Power minisubstations in the same area in the same week and this contributed to the extended outages customers are experiencing.”

TimesLIVE