Malvern versus City Power

They are demanding City Power adopt a policy of transparency and start communicating with them.

Ms Bernadette Wentzel, the chairperson of the Cleveland Community Police Forum (CCPF) Sector 3 Forum, has been inundated with power outage complaints.

As a result of the number of problems, she has demanded a meeting with senior officials at City Power in the hopes of discussing the problems and finding solutions.

“It has become a case of City Power versus Malvern residents it seems. The vibe in Malvern is not good at all, with residents’ frustrations peaking at boiling point,” said Ms Wentzel.

She provided examples of recent problems that aggravated residents.

She said earlier this month a wire used to secure fuses was found to be discoloured, a clear indication that it had burnt. This resulted in a power outage.

She said despite this, some residents were apparently informed that the power outages were due to cable theft.

“If this was the case, then the intelligence of the residents has been grossly undermined. If a synopsis was done as requested by me previously, City Power would have been able to spot the regular problems in certain areas. For example in Persimmon Street, where every second house is experiencing power outages more often than not. The electricity in Malvern goes off on a regular basis. The turnaround time to attend to the problem is unacceptable. On occasion, residents were without power for three to five days,” she said.

She said calling the call centre is no longer an option since people are put on hold for more than half an hour and the calls are initially answered with a voice recording which is time consuming.

“It would seem the system is highly flawed. I understand the influx of calls but the department falls under service delivery and it is the residents who are suffering,” she said.

She said in one instance, she logged the same fault at least four times. Other residents also logged the same faults.

A technician came out the following day and within an hour, the residents were again without power. The same fault was re-logged and the same situation played out the entire weekend.

Speaking about another incident in recent weeks, Ms Wentzel said a power outage occurred as a result of a street light pole that caught alight.

Ms Wentzel said that after three days without power, a technician went to the area, but because Galteemore Street was not on his list, the problem was not addressed while he was there.

She said she requested a meeting with a senior person at City Power but has yet to receive feedback.

She said that the power outages are resulting in a number of serious situations.

“Non-functioning street lights hamper crime prevention. Then we have street lights working during the day but not in the evening. I am more than willing to accompany a representative of City Power throughout Malvern to point out the problem areas. The CCPF Sector 3 Forum consists of members who are volunteers to improve the standard of living in Malvern. All our resources are from our own, personal pockets. Our only agenda is to improve the standard of living for all residents in Malvern. City Power’s assistance would be appreciated,” said Ms Wentzel.

The EXPRESS forwarded an enquiry to City Power officials on July 8 and 14. At the time of going to print, no comment had been received.

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