Johannesburg mayor Mpho Phalatse has asked Eskom to grant the metro a three-day reprieve from stage 5 load-shedding as City Power teams struggle to keep up with faults across the city in the wake of storms.
On Monday morning, City Power was dealing with more than 4,000 service calls related to power outages, with a significant proportion now being multi-day issues.
According to the city, the hardest-hit areas include Roodepoort, Hursthill, Northcliff and Lenasia.
MMC for environment and infrastructure services department Michael Sun said while progress is being made to address the thousands of outages since last week’s inclement weather and flooding, continuous rainfall means more faults were being logged every hour.
“Given the urgent need for City Power to attend to the widespread and escalating faults, the entity has expressed its concern that load-shedding is not only causing additional faults and stress on the network but also preventing the entity from being able to effectively attend to the outages and stabilise the situation,” Sun said.
Sun explained that power lines and infrastructure cannot be worked on when there is no power, and cable theft increases exponentially during blackouts.
“Accordingly, Phalatse has on behalf of City Power submitted an urgent request to Eskom for exclusion from load-shedding for 72 hours to clear the backlog.”
As City Power handles 4,000 outages, Joburg asks for three days’ exemption from load-shedding
Image: Supplied
Johannesburg mayor Mpho Phalatse has asked Eskom to grant the metro a three-day reprieve from stage 5 load-shedding as City Power teams struggle to keep up with faults across the city in the wake of storms.
On Monday morning, City Power was dealing with more than 4,000 service calls related to power outages, with a significant proportion now being multi-day issues.
According to the city, the hardest-hit areas include Roodepoort, Hursthill, Northcliff and Lenasia.
MMC for environment and infrastructure services department Michael Sun said while progress is being made to address the thousands of outages since last week’s inclement weather and flooding, continuous rainfall means more faults were being logged every hour.
“Given the urgent need for City Power to attend to the widespread and escalating faults, the entity has expressed its concern that load-shedding is not only causing additional faults and stress on the network but also preventing the entity from being able to effectively attend to the outages and stabilise the situation,” Sun said.
Sun explained that power lines and infrastructure cannot be worked on when there is no power, and cable theft increases exponentially during blackouts.
“Accordingly, Phalatse has on behalf of City Power submitted an urgent request to Eskom for exclusion from load-shedding for 72 hours to clear the backlog.”
Joburg Roads Agency assessing road damage after flooding
Sun denounced the criminality affecting electrical infrastructure and repair teams.
“While we are doing our best to restore the outages and the city’s councillors are doing their best to assist the residents, thugs see our technicians as easy targets.”
On Sunday, four City Power technicians were held at gunpoint, assaulted and robbed by six men in Jeppestown while in full view of community members standing by, he said.
“Threats and intimidation of technicians are reported daily. We are appealing to all Joburgers to help us to keep our workers safe so we can get through this crisis together.”
Sun also pleaded with residents to not vandalise infrastructure such as mini-substations to vent their anger over power outages, which would further delay restoration and put other residents in the dark.
Meanwhile, Eskom told TimesLIVE that City Power had made a request for exclusion from loadshedding.
"The request is currently being reviewed," Eskom said.
TimesLIVE
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