Furious residents of Randburg’s Bromhof suburb, who have suffered more than 300 hours — equivalent to more than 12 days — of power outages on top of load-shedding in the past five weeks, are taking matters into their own hands.
Frustrated by City Power’s lack of action and poor communication, they have taken to tracking every claim, confronting technicians and managers, protesting at depots, barging into offices and aggressively confronting whoever they can track down.
But even these extremes have brought the embattled suburb no joy as, by 1pm on Thursday, they marked their 30th consecutive hour with no electricity. The last two contradictory updates from City Power were at 10.42am on X, that the local substation has been fixed and power fully restored to the area, and at 12.35pm saying the “testing team” had been delayed and another team was on the way to “locate a fault”.
Several residents are keeping a log of power outages.
Bromhof resident Jeff Levin has been particularly active in aiding the mission to get the power switched back on. He lives in the same complex where sick three-year old Neyemiah James died in her mother’s arms on May 25, after the inverter powering her oxygen machine ran flat during a power outage and the family could not get her to hospital fast enough to save her.
“On Saturday I was so frustrated by the same repeated bunch of generated messages and excuses that I decided to drive around the area and see for myself what was going on,” Levin said. It was late morning when he entered the City Power depot where he encountered ward councillor Ralf Bittkau, who had already done a walkabout and had not found a soul on duty while the offices stood open.
The crowd was quite aggressive and accused him (City Power senior executive, Richard Miyambu) of making false promises, but he was adamant and agreed to give his cell number to three of us to hold him accountable. We told him that if the power is not back by 6pm, we will circulate his number.
— Bromhof resident Jeff Levin
Bittkau shared video footage, along with commentary, expressing dissatisfaction with the situation. Levin walked around the property and came across two men at the back sitting in a bakkie.
“They promised me that stuff was being sorted out. They said the outage was the result of a high voltage fault and they were a low voltage crew. Then they just drove off and nobody was left,” he said.
Levin continued patrolling the area and encountered a team of technicians digging up cables opposite the Northgate Shopping Centre.
“I stayed with them for a long time and took them some cold drink and food. Eventually the power came back on just after midnight.”
But the lights went out again at 5.50am on Wednesday, and once again Bromhof began with desperate pleas for information and action. Neighbourhood WhatsApp groups buzzed and a group of about 30 residents agreed to meet at the Randburg City Power depot at 1pm, where they were greeted by beefed up security but no manager on site.
They were told to wait and some time later Richard Miyambu, a senior executive at City Power, addressed the crowd. According to Levin, Miyambu agreed that “this is not a way for people to live” and promised that power would be restored by 6pm.
“The crowd was quite aggressive and accused him of making false promises, but he was adamant and agreed to give his cell number to three of us to hold him accountable. We told him that if the power is not back by 6pm, we will circulate his number,” Levin said.
The three designated communicators were in touch with Miyambu throughout the evening, as the power remained off and Miyambu pleaded for more time.
Late on Wednesday evening a group of frustrated residents went out to the Perm Street distributor and the North Riding substation to find out what work was being done. Accounts of what they encountered differ. According to one source, two technicians were sitting in a City Power vehicle and claimed they were waiting to carry out tests for teams out in the field trying to locate the fault. Another source claimed it was a couple in the vehicle, and they were having sex.
Video footage of the site visit seen by TimesLIVE Premium shows shaky images of a couple standing in the dark while people confront them.
“Come on guys, we’ve got little kids. We have thrown away fridges of food and you are sitting here doing nothing,” an angry man shouts as others chime in.
“I understand your frustration,” the woman responds.
“No, you don’t. Everything here is f***ed. All the food we have lost ...” the man replies as the woman walks off to a distant office.
More cars are seen arriving at the depot, and a resident remarks: “There is nobody on the job there. We may as well dig our own graves and bury ourselves.” Another explains that the sudden arrivals were because security guards had contacted managers who were suddenly responding.
The person recording the footage proceeds to capture the licence plates of the vehicles on site.
On Thursday morning the allegation of improper conduct by a couple in a vehicle at the depot was widely denied.
“Other people went out and found technicians sitting in a City Power vehicle, and they were not reporting to anyone and were basically just out trying to collect overtime,” Levin said.
On Thursday Bittkau posted an update conceding there were no straight answers or clarity.
“I understand the frustrations over these failures, but the fact is that 95% of places in Randburg are backfed and the original faults are not being fixed, and they cannot do this any more,” Bittkau said, condemning “a small group of residents that have been interfering in the situation and blockading depots”.
Bittkau said the pair ambushed on the property were a communications officer and team leader who were on site waiting for information and “accusations that they were carrying on in the car are absolute nonsense”.
Infuriated by the continued outage, Bromhof representatives entrusted with Miyambu’s cellphone number began circulating it in community groups.
City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava did not respond to calls or WhatsApp messages from TimesLIVE Premium. Calls and messages to Miyambu were also not returned.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena told TimesLIVE Premium that all information and status updates available had been put out by City Power. He was unable to comment further as he was “on a tour with the MEC”.
The fault was eventually located late on Thursday, the restoration process began at 10pm and by Friday morning the suburb had electricity. The outage lasted just over 40 hours.
