Shocking: Resident claims he had permission to 'flip switch', but City Power and city say 'no way'

A resident in Crosby, Johannesburg, says he was given permission to flip a switch at the tripped substation where he sustained an electric shock on Wednesday. 

The 22-year-old was released from hospital on Thursday.

To add to his aches and pains, City Power has charged him with vandalism and malicious damage to property.

Both the City of Johannesburg and City Power have rubbished claims that residents have been given permission to enter or interact with the substation, as it is not only dangerous but illegal.

Resident Mohamed Mansoor on Thursday said he was one of “the few residents entrusted and trained on how to operate the switches by City Power”.

He said he had been flipping the tripped switch at the Crosby substation ever since it was installed a few weeks ago. He said the switch tripped about 12 times a day and the turnaround time to get City Power to flip it back on was hours.

The previous substation blew up, leaving residents without power for at least four days. 

Officials say the substation is tripping because of overloading from illegal connections to the Slovo Park informal settlement. 

The man was electrocuted at 12 noon on Wednesday and residents are complaining they have been in the dark since.

In a statement released that afternoon City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the entity would switch the power back on “after the legal processes have been completed”.

Mansoor said he got involved with the substation after it exploded at the end of June.

“It was bad. We had to be evacuated from home. It happened on Tuesday and we only got back power on [the] Friday. As soon as [the power came back] it was tripping 12 times a day. I was trained by a City Power official ... who asked me to unlock the box for him. He then took me through the phases and promised there would be load balancing [to ensure the station wouldn’t trip] and then asked me to close the box.”

He said he interpreted the official asking him to open and close the box as consent to do so. 

“There’s other substations in the area that are hanging on by a thread due to these backfeeds and power surges. But you have elderly women [who flip the switches themselves]. I’m told of someone [who is] 63 years old who goes to the substation in her slippers and flips on the tripped switch - all because City Power can’t cope with reasonable response times and doesn’t have the skills or equipment on hand to address the root problem. Do you blame the residents for volunteering themselves to flip a switch?”

Mansoor claims councillor Rickey Nair also encouraged residents to flip the tripped switch, a claim Nair vehemently denies. 

The ward 58 councillor said if Mansoor had been given permission he wasn’t present or didn’t hear the conversation “because I would have stepped in to warn them against it”.

“I can understand that the residents are frustrated. City Power can take a day to put the breaker back but residents need to understand how dangerous this task is.

“The young man who was injured is a family friend and I feel for him and I am thankful he did not die. But even with the frustration, residents need to realise how foolish it is to flip a 11,000 volt switch.

“That street is tripping every three hours [the power is out] for many hours a day. Where do you draw the line?

“As councillor I will not put anyone’s life at risk. But at the same time City Power needs to take a lot of the blame. This is a new box they say [despite it constantly tripping]. The way City Power works is like putting a Band-Aid over the situation.”

Nair didn’t want to speculate on how the man was electrocuted but said the 400amp breaker needed strength to switch it and perhaps the man held onto something, which had caused the shock.

“I’ve seen officials use rubber gloves and still flick the switch with a stick or kick it up with a rubber boot. With the illegal connections you don’t know how much circuit is coming through that thing. I would rather wait for officials to come and fix it - I wouldn’t do it myself.”

In Wednesday’s statement Mangena said before the incident, the “minisubstation tripped on a suspected overload”.

He said a call was logged with City Power and the team was finishing work at one site before they could attend to the tripped substation.

They claim that in a trail of WhatsApp group messages from impatient residents the victim was warned by Nair and other residents against intervening.

“It would seem the victim went ahead and tried to operate when the substation blew up. City Power operates in a highly regulated environment which prohibits unauthorised individuals from operating on the electricity network."

He said them doing so was dangerous and illegal.

Mangena said there was a “serious problem” of vandalism of the infrastructure “to an extent where residents illegally operate our network, often with the help of unqualified electricians, and connect themselves to the network or do illegal connections into the informal settlements”.

“The area of Crosby is one of those with this problem, where people in formalised houses illegally connect themselves [and] bypass meters and illegal connections to Slovo informal settlement.

“We have, as City Power, decided to report a case of vandalism and malicious damage to property against the victim.”

Nickolaus Bauer, spokesperson for councillor Michael Sun, MMC for the environment infrastructure service department (EISD), said residents were “absolutely incorrect” to claim they were given permission by officials to do any work in the substation.

“It’s absolutely incorrect and not only foolhardy to think that the city would allow a layman permission to even enter the substation, but it is also illegal.

“The EISD denies and dismisses the sentiment that a resident would be given permission to [flip the switch].

“Unfortunately City Power and the city need to take a hard line on this,” he said.

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