Angry residents from Bromhof, Boskruin and Northwold are demanding answers and accountability from City Power and their local councilors after suffering incessant power outages with no clear plan of action being presented.
An online petition, which had garnered almost 400 household signatures within hours of going live, calls for City Power to be transparent and honest about the ongoing and prolonged outages in the area and demands a clear plan of action to end the poor service delivery. The petition reads: “The residents of Bromhof, Boskruin and Northwold are largely rate-paying citizens, many of whom run small businesses being wrecked by the careless and apparent nonchalant attitude of all those with the ability and influence to affect real change. It is killing livelihoods and goodwill is now finished.”
Organiser of the petition, business owner and resident Devlin Brown says that while this petition speaks specifically about Northwold, Boskruin and Bromhof, he’s aware of growing anger simmering in surrounding suburbs such as Sundowner. “This petition is a desperate move because the overwhelming feeling is that local councilors are reduced to ‘escalating’ queries without any teeth to get real answers from the City as to what is really wrong, and how and when it will be addressed.
“Make no mistake, this is not about load shedding. We are all aware of Eskom’s dire situation. This petition is about the local infrastructure that clearly has not been maintained. It’s not unusual to be without power for hours or days as a result of ‘overload’, ‘vandalism’, ‘substation problems’, and more. Residents are reduced to reading obscure updates from City Power about technicians ‘investigating’ while their businesses are destroyed. Once would be okay, twice, maybe even ten times, but it is the same thing, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year – through different elected councilors – and so it’s time City Power and the Metro sit up and take notice,” he says.
Brown adds that frustration becomes exacerbated when local council WhatsApp groups are reduced to “escalation mechanisms”, and calls for more precise answers and proof of how the City is being held to account are shut down because it goes against the community group rules, as well as “party political praise singers who imply that residents should be grateful when power is restored, not matter how temporary that may be”.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. City Power, City of Johannesburg and Mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse must hear the cries directly from the ratepaying residents. We don’t expect miracles, Dr Phalatse, we just want accountability and clear, honest answers and not the PR spin from City Power that’s distributed on community WhatsApp groups pretending to be answers.”
On Thursday, 23 June, City Power distributed a press release saying that load shedding is putting too much strain on their resources, saying: “The last two days, Tuesday and Wednesday were the worst with most of our substations failing to switch on restoration, with Randburg the hardest hit.” Brown says that residents understand that load shedding is abnormal at the best of times, but that the problems in Northwold, Boskruin and Bromhof occur before, during and after load shedding and in the absence of honesty about the real state of the infrastructure and levels of vandalism, it all “sounds like passing the blame for not maintaining their infrastructure. We could play the what-about game and rattle off the names of more trendy suburbs in the council that don’t suffer the same problems during load shedding.”
Ward 134 councilor Devon Steenkamp tweeted on June 23 that the CEO of City Power has been informed and “asked to get involved” in the ongoing outages. This sentiment was echoed by Ward 101 councilor Ralf Bitkau on a local WhatsApp group. Steenkamp also wrote a post on Facebook that read: “I am working on getting City Power public meeting for residents sometime first week of July, details will be communicated once confirmed.”
Brown urges City Power CEO Mr Mongezi Ntsokolo and Mayor Dr Phalatse to face the residents and provide a plan, and take seriously the number of angry residents who have signed the petition for accountability. To gain a sense of the community’s outrage, he suggests interested parties read the comments left by residents on the online petition at: https://chng.it/KfV8HjmcwZ
