Meeting attempts to address electricity woes

Following months of persistent electricity woes, Ward 97 councillor Jacques Hoon conducted a public meeting on February 21 at the IIE MSA in Ruimsig to update residents about the challenges experienced as well as progress made towards stabilising the ward’s electrical supply.

The ward is one of the biggest in the area and consists of 16 suburbs in total.

The area has been under great strain for many months, and residents have had to contend with cable theft on a major scale, which causes lengthy power outages. In some areas, the power is turned off for days on end every week. This is in addition to load-shedding.

Hoon encountered pushback from disgruntled residents who gathered for the meeting. Hoon was regularly interrupted by community members who only wanted to hear from the City Power representatives who had come at Hoon’s invitation.

He explained that Ward 97 is one of the hardest hit areas and that while residents may believe City Power’s service is inadequate, they must remember that providing for an area of this size, with over 20,000 households and over 50,000 residents, is a massive undertaking.

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Hoon praised City Power for their relentless efforts to keep up with the replacement and repair of electricity infrastructure, and he emphasised that this entity is fighting an uphill battle against criminals, calling their current predicament ‘an empty pit of replacement’.

The councillor explained that City Power is working under enormous pressure and with very limited resources to try and keep ahead of criminals that vandalise electricity infrastructure and steal copper cables.

“The budget that is supposed to go toward improving our network is currently going to continuous replacement and repair – a continuous flow of money down that pit.”

Hoon stressed that we cannot hold City Power accountable for that, since it is not their fault that cables are being stolen and infrastructure vandalised.

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Despite the rife cable theft and vandalism, he says, some headway is being made.

“City Power has actively engaged with communities and has launched initiatives aimed at mitigating the cable theft and vandalism. Some of these initiatives are already off the ground and running well, and some are still being implemented.”

He also called on the community to do their part by paying their municipal bills.

“Collection of municipal bills stands at 84%. That means that 16% of the billed rates are not being paid. That money is directly removed from the entities that provide these crucial services.”

Hoon mentioned that the problems start at a national level, with electricity generation from Eskom, and budget allocations to entities.

“First prize would be to solve those issues,” he says. “This would probably mitigate up to 80% of the problems we face on ground level. Unfortunately, at a local level, we have no control over these matters.”