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By Bonginkosi Tiwane

Digital Journalist


City Power responds after Tbo Touch’s fiery complaints on social media

Eskom recently handed over load shedding operations for large parts of Johannesburg to City Power.


City Power has responded to complaints from frustrated residents, one of which is Metro FM DJ Tbo Touch, who have been without power for at least 26 hours.

“City Power Hursthill Service Delivery Centre (SDC) is sitting with 358 calls, and 98 of those calls were logged over the past 24-hours. We are currently sitting with 63 Plants that are out of service,” read a statement from City Power.

“A failed state, a failed government. This is South Africa today! 26 hours of no update whatsoever, basic infrastructure such as water and electricity are so depleted they can’t even account,” Tbo Touch lashed out at the City’s officials on social media.

“By the way this Johannesburg’s highest rates and tax community! Wow City Power Joburg, really?’”

One of Touch’s followers on Instagram suggested that the media personality go the solar route. “Bro! Change to solar man.. “Go Solar” is dope,” said Neil Neilt Thurston.

“Been on solar for over a year. Solar’s duration can only last you for 12 hours depending on your battery,” responded Touch.

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Faulty

According to City Power some distributors have been declared faulty. “Forestown distributors 1 and 2 are off, as they have been declared faulty. Test branch was dispatched to test interconnectors where a cable fault was located. A third party has unfortunately damaged the interconnectors from Parkhurst Substation feeding Forestown Substation,” read the City’s statement.

“Operators have worked tirelessly throughout the evening, digging to expose the affected cables. Test branch is on site to verify the faults for repairs to proceed. Repairs are still underway on Forestown distributor 2, where a cable fault has been detected.”

 “We apologise for the inconvenience caused. The estimated time for restoration will be communicated.”

The statement said the weather could impede on the City’s efforts to make the necessary repairs. “The possibility of inclement weather could affect our response time to outages. As a result, repairs and restorations could be delayed.”

Eskom has handed over load shedding operations for large parts of Johannesburg to City Power. Load shedding operations for most of City Power’s areas of supply, previously administered by Eskom, will now be the city’s responsibility and will enable it to exclude industrial and business customers from load shedding.

City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava said: “We have conducted simulations and network reconfiguration to ensure a smooth transition to the new schedule. We have already started a few months ago with the gradual exclusion of most of our industrial, large business customers.

“This exclusion has also been extended to most essential services, including health facilities and water, with work under way to ensure more essential services are excluded,” she said.

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