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Bad weather affecting City Power response time to over 2 000 outages
City Power has logged a high volume of outage calls, largely resulting from heavy rainfall and higher stages of load shedding.
City Power is attending to over 2 000 outage calls. The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) have arrested five people including a City Power official and subcontractor after they tried stealing an electrical transformer in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. The four male and one female suspect were arrested by the JMPD’s Undercover Reaction Unit for attempted theft of critical Infrastructure on Friday. Tip-off JMPD spokesperson Xolani Fihla said officers received information about suspects who were allegedly stealing critical electrical equipment at a building on Kapteijn and Twist Street. “The officers proceeded to the given location and found the alleged suspects disconnecting the transformer. The suspects were questioned on their dubious conduct. Whilst interviewing the suspects, it was discovered that one of them is a City Power official and another suspect is a City Power subcontractor. It’s alleged that the City Power official hired the other suspects to assist him to take the transformer, and promised to pay them after the completion of the job,” Fihla said. City Power vehicle Fihla said vehicles were also seized during the bust. “Three vehicles used in the commission of the crime, a white Nissan NP200 and two Nissan trucks, one with a City Power logo displayed on it were seized and booked in at the Saps Aeroton pound. Fihla added that the suspects were arrested and detained at Hillbrow police station and are expected to appear in court soon. Other incidents Meanwhile, in a separate incident, Another City Power contractor was caught on Friday on video, removing 20 metres of copper cable and replacing it with ABC cable along Hamberg Road, Witpoortjie. City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena sad the suspect was taken to the Honeydew Police Station for processing. “The Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre, also reported that last night, one of their transformer inside a chamber around Matholesville was stolen but no arrests have been made. It is not clear if any of the arrested suspects is linked to this theft of a transformer and the police are investigating,” Mangena said. Cable theft and vandalism Mangena City Power has discovered 26 incidents of cable theft and vandalism and made 8 arrests in March. “Internal disciplinary action will follow against the City Power employee, and the City Power contractors will be fired and have their contracts with the entity terminated. “It is extremely disappointing for us as these are the people that are entrusted with keeping the lights on but instead they are the ones contributing to the lights being off,” Mangena said. The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) have arrested five people including a City Power official and subcontractor after they tried stealing an electrical transformer in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. The four male and one female suspect were arrested by the JMPD’s Undercover Reaction Unit for attempted theft of critical Infrastructure on Friday. Tip-off JMPD spokesperson Xolani Fihla said officers received information about suspects who were allegedly stealing critical electrical equipment at a building on Kapteijn and Twist Street. “The officers proceeded to the given location and found the alleged suspects disconnecting the transformer. The suspects were questioned on their dubious conduct. Whilst interviewing the suspects, it was discovered that one of them is a City Power official and another suspect is a City Power subcontractor. It’s alleged that the City Power official hired the other suspects to assist him to take the transformer, and promised to pay them after the completion of the job,” Fihla said. City Power vehicle Fihla said vehicles were also seized during the bust. “Three vehicles used in the commission of the crime, a white Nissan NP200 and two Nissan trucks, one with a City Power logo displayed on it were seized and booked in at the Saps Aeroton pound. Fihla added that the suspects were arrested and detained at Hillbrow police station and are expected to appear in court soon. Other incidents Meanwhile, in a separate incident, Another City Power contractor was caught on Friday on video, removing 20 metres of copper cable and replacing it with ABC cable along Hamberg Road, Witpoortjie. City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena sad the suspect was taken to the Honeydew Police Station for processing. “The Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre, also reported that last night, one of their transformer inside a chamber around Matholesville was stolen but no arrests have been made. It is not clear if any of the arrested suspects is linked to this theft of a transformer and the police are investigating,” Mangena said. Cable theft and vandalism Mangena City Power has discovered 26 incidents of cable theft and vandalism and made 8 arrests in March. “Internal disciplinary action will follow against the City Power employee, and the City Power contractors will be fired and have their contracts with the entity terminated. “It is extremely disappointing for us as these are the people that are entrusted with keeping the lights on but instead they are the ones contributing to the lights being off,” Mangena said. The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) have arrested five people including a City Power official and subcontractor after they tried stealing an electrical transformer in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. The four male and one female suspect were arrested by the JMPD’s Undercover Reaction Unit for attempted theft of critical Infrastructure on Friday. Tip-off JMPD spokesperson Xolani Fihla said officers received information about suspects who were allegedly stealing critical electrical equipment at a building on Kapteijn and Twist Street. “The officers proceeded to the given location and found the alleged suspects disconnecting the transformer. The suspects were questioned on their dubious conduct. Whilst interviewing the suspects, it was discovered that one of them is a City Power official and another suspect is a City Power subcontractor. It’s alleged that the City Power official hired the other suspects to assist him to take the transformer, and promised to pay them after the completion of the job,” Fihla said. City Power vehicle Fihla said vehicles were also seized during the bust. “Three vehicles used in the commission of the crime, a white Nissan NP200 and two Nissan trucks, one with a City Power logo displayed on it were seized and booked in at the Saps Aeroton pound. Fihla added that the suspects were arrested and detained at Hillbrow police station and are expected to appear in court soon. Other incidents Meanwhile, in a separate incident, Another City Power contractor was caught on Friday on video, removing 20 metres of copper cable and replacing it with ABC cable along Hamberg Road, Witpoortjie. City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena sad the suspect was taken to the Honeydew Police Station for processing. “The Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre, also reported that last night, one of their transformer inside a chamber around Matholesville was stolen but no arrests have been made. It is not clear if any of the arrested suspects is linked to this theft of a transformer and the police are investigating,” Mangena said. Cable theft and vandalism Mangena City Power has discovered 26 incidents of cable theft and vandalism and made 8 arrests in March. “Internal disciplinary action will follow against the City Power employee, and the City Power contractors will be fired and have their contracts with the entity terminated. “It is extremely disappointing for us as these are the people that are entrusted with keeping the lights on but instead they are the ones contributing to the lights being off,” Mangena said.
City Power has warned that the inclement weather conditions is severely affecting its response times in dealing with over two thousand current power outages.
The regional power utility said it has logged a high volume of outage calls, largely resulting from Tuesday night’s heavy rainfall compounded by higher stages of load shedding.
Outages
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the outages in the City of Johannesburg have also been compounded by other problems.
“Incidents of cable theft and vandalism in different parts of the City has not made things easier either, leaving a lot of customers without power supply. Close to 2 500 calls were logged by this morning after overnight thunderstorms which triggered equipment failure at various substations.”
Mangena assured resident that City Power teams have been dispatched across the City to try and deal with the reported outage backlogs.
“However, due to the fact that some of the areas are still waterlogged, repairs and restoration process could be delayed.”
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Affected areas
Mangena said the majority of outages have affected Hursthill, where several substations which include Roosevelt, Forrest Town and Parktown north distributor tripped after load shedding during the heavy rains.
“There are currently several outages in Roodepoort that our operators are attending to, including Peter Road where installation of a mini-substation was halted by heavy downpours yesterday. Our operators are also responding to Wilropark outage.
“Attempted cable theft at Eikenhof Substation (Lougherin distributor) resulted in a power outage that is affecting Naturena Camptonville. Cables were stolen on Monday, but were subsequently repaired and power was restored last night. However, four hours after restoration, the cable was damaged again due to attempted theft,” Mangena said.
Repairs
Mangena said other areas affected by the outages including Mulbarton, Glenvista and surrounding areas.
“The repair work at the Nirvana Substation in Lenasia where two faulty cables caused an outage could not be carried out last night due to rainfall. Teams are currently busy.”
“City Power is doubling its efforts and resources in a bid to minimise the impact of the prolonged outages, however, due to a stretched resources, load shedding, bad weather, cable theft and vandalism, our response time will unfortunately be delayed,” Mangena said.
City Power has apologised for the inconvenience caused to customers saying it continues to engage with the local ward councillors to deal with the outages.
Compiled by Senior Digital Journalist by Faizel Patel
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