Illegal connections blamed for outages in River Park

River Park residents continue to endure unplanned outages, particularly in the evenings. According to City Power, the latest disruption stems from infrastructure overloading caused by unlawful electricity connections in the area.

“The damaged mini substation was replaced last month, but in less than two weeks, some customers illegally reconnected to the unit, which contributed to the current situation,” said Isaac Mangena, City Power’s General Manager for Public Relations and Communication.

The utility carried out an illegal connections cut-off operation in River Park on July 2, targeting flats that had illegally tapped into the grid in the K206 area connecting to Mahauzana. The disconnection drive saw the utility seize cables with an estimated value of R2.5m.

Also read: City Power drives free basic electricity registration in Alexandra on Mandela Day

Despite these efforts, reconnections resumed. Furious residents, facing limited alternatives, threatened to reconnect illegally to the grid, and they have, “Some people are still connecting [illegally] to the grid. But most people rely on gas for cooking. When you look outside at night to see where people are lighting, you would see it is not all of us. It is only some parts of the block that are lit,” said Mapule Mogoba, a community leader in Mahauzana.

City Power has announced a temporary solution for the households pending longer-term infrastructure plans. The plan involves installing a dedicated mini-substation and four to six pillar boxes per block of flats to provide a bulk electricity supply to Mahauzana flats. Yet, despite the announcement of this plan, illegal connections persist. Mogoba said this could be attributed to the residents’ declining trust in community leaders, especially amid delays in implementing the interim solution they had told residents City Power would implement.

As Mahauzana residents wait for City Power to start installing the mini-substations and pillar boxes, the utility has since warned against illegal connections. “We want to remind customers that illegal connections are a serious threat to the stability of our network and can cause disruptions as well as life-threatening risks,” Mangena noted.

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