Joburg suburbs face day of frustration without electricity
in Joburg’s north today. The interruptions will be implemented for essential maintenance work on the entity’s network, said Hloni Motloung, City Power spokesperson.
“City Power will switch off electricity supply at a substation or other portion of the network supplying electricity to some suburbs in Johannesburg north to execute emergency duties to correct defects in the network so that it functions at its maximum potential.”
Motloung said people will definitely be affected, but that is expected. “We know it’s month end so people have been warned in time to prepare themselves or make alternative means to go through the day without electricity.”
Dennis Hunt, DA spokesman on power, said: “No power on Saturday is better than no power during the week, but this is ridiculous.”
However, Hunt said the infrastructure needed this maintenance, but he was convinced that an alternative way to fix the problem could have been found. One that would affect less suburbs. “City Power has an ‘oh well, its only one day’ mentality. But power will be off in so many suburbs for so long, that is a day of money out the window, it’s a hole in the GDP.”
Marcelle Ravid, ward councillor for Houghton, one of the suburbs that will be affected, also said maintenance on the electricity infrastructure has been dismal and an issue for many years. “At long last they are taking the problem seriously, maintenance on this infrastructure has been badly needed.”
But the number of suburbs that will be hit is a warning that people should opt for alternative energy like gas. This outage will be a huge inconvenience to the public, said Ravid.
Some of the areas that will be affected include Melrose, Illovo, Bramley, Killarney and Waverley. City Power advised the public to treat their electricity supply point as live at all times during the interruptions because the supply may be restored at anytime.
The public can contact the City of Joburg’s call centre at 0860 562 874 for further information on the interruptions.