Residents put long-standing frustrations over power faults, pending electricity approvals and dark streets directly to municipal leaders during a City Power electricity imbizo at Ruimsig Stadium on Thursday, September 3.

The public meeting brought together community members from wards 83, 85 and 97 to highlight prolonged power cuts, capacity constraints, non-functioning streetlights and individual supply faults.

City of Johannesburg Executive Mayor Dada Morero said the city had secured about R700m in additional capital funding for electricity infrastructure, on top of an existing budget of about R1.6b to R1.7b. Morero explained that the supplemental funds would allow the municipality to address capacity bottlenecks restricting local development and power supply.

Lutz Substation to ease capacity constraints

Acting City Power CEO Charles Tlouane told residents that load-related capacity issues were expected to be resolved by December when the Lutz Substation starts operating. Tlouane said that by December, the capacity issues should be resolved.

The Lutz Substation is an 88/11kV project constructed by City Power to boost bulk supply and relieve heavy pressure on the Peter Road and Kloofendal substations. It is set to reduce prolonged outages caused by overloading and cable theft affecting residents in Honeydew areas and some parts of Ward 97.

For some residents, however, the problems have been years in the making.

Long-standing property and supply delays

Louisa Sardinha from Ward 97, said her 89-year-old mother had been waiting for electricity approval for a property for 22 years, adding that the approval had been granted and withdrawn several times.

“All she wants is an approval of the electricity so that she can sell the property to a developer to develop,” she said.

Morero said City Power officials would take the family’s details and visit the property to determine the required intervention. Another Ward 97 resident, Lerato Takalo, said three businesses were relying on a 350kVA meter box that was struggling to cope with demand. She called for it to be upgraded to 500kVA or 700kVA. Morero said work to increase capacity was expected to start on Friday, September 11.

Streetlight backlog and infrastructure theft

Streetlights were another pressing issue. Resident Walter van Schalkwyk said he had been reporting faulty streetlights for more than two years.

“I personally have logged tickets for over two years. For two years, nothing has happened,” he said.

Tlouane said City Power would intensify work on the streetlight backlog and encouraged residents to continue reporting faults. He also said theft and vandalism remained a major cause of outages, accounting for 20% of City Power’s outages, and said the utility was replacing some copper infrastructure with aluminium.

Residents also raised concerns about a recurring Cypress Road electricity fault, which Angie Pipi said had resulted in phase-downs and damaged appliances.

Direct engagement on community concerns

The meeting was streamed live, while mobile offices at the stadium allowed residents to raise billing and electricity-related queries directly with officials. Questions submitted online included an update on new prepaid meters and concerns about recurring outages in Honeydew, which were addressed by the mayor. Morero said the city was also working to address ageing electricity infrastructure and attract further investment to strengthen bulk infrastructure in the area.