The City of Johannesburg has cleared a backlog of 3,000 calls caused by the recent devastating storms during a 72-hour reprieve from load-shedding.
A statement from the office of Johannesburg mayor Mpho Phalatse on Tuesday said City Power had managed to reduce a backlog of 5,000 calls to 2,000 after Eskom announced last week that certain areas in the city would be exempt from load-shedding to deal with flood damage.
“City Power, together with Eskom, used their discretion to decide on the areas that were under pressure with maintenance and repair backlogs to be given some reprieve from load-shedding. We can safely say we are on the right track in terms of recovery and dealing with the huge backlogs we encountered due to the recent floods and thunderstorms.”
According to Phalatse, estimated costs to normalise the electricity supply after the devastating floods are in the region of R31m, with overall damage to infrastructure, across departments and entities estimated at R300m.
“It is in this context that I submitted a detailed report to the national and provincial disaster management centres to classify the ongoing emergency as a state of local disaster.”
Phalatse said a declaration of a local state of disaster will allow the city to access resources from other spheres of government if and when needed, as well as accelerate procurement processes for emergency operations.
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City Power clears backlog of 3,000 calls during 72-hour load-shedding reprieve
Image: Maribe Trevor Mokgobu
The City of Johannesburg has cleared a backlog of 3,000 calls caused by the recent devastating storms during a 72-hour reprieve from load-shedding.
A statement from the office of Johannesburg mayor Mpho Phalatse on Tuesday said City Power had managed to reduce a backlog of 5,000 calls to 2,000 after Eskom announced last week that certain areas in the city would be exempt from load-shedding to deal with flood damage.
“City Power, together with Eskom, used their discretion to decide on the areas that were under pressure with maintenance and repair backlogs to be given some reprieve from load-shedding. We can safely say we are on the right track in terms of recovery and dealing with the huge backlogs we encountered due to the recent floods and thunderstorms.”
According to Phalatse, estimated costs to normalise the electricity supply after the devastating floods are in the region of R31m, with overall damage to infrastructure, across departments and entities estimated at R300m.
“It is in this context that I submitted a detailed report to the national and provincial disaster management centres to classify the ongoing emergency as a state of local disaster.”
Phalatse said a declaration of a local state of disaster will allow the city to access resources from other spheres of government if and when needed, as well as accelerate procurement processes for emergency operations.
TimesLIVE
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
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