Johannesburg - The mayor of Johannesburg, Mpho Phalatse, said the city has managed to make progress in repairing electrical faults and City Power infrastructure that were damaged by the recent floods and storms in the city.
The city had experienced massive floods that saw more than 300 houses and structures damaged. There was other damage to roads and bridges, and power lines were also damaged.
This led to Phalatse asking Eskom for a three-day exemption from load shedding to repair the damage. Phalatse said the reprieve enabled her and the multiparty government to solve half of the faults reported to City Power. There were about 4 000 calls logged concerning power outages and other problems.
Phalatse estimated that normalising the city’s electricity supply would cost about R31 million. The total cost of infrastructure damage among all entities was estimated at R300m.
“Following Eskom granting the City of Johannesburg a three-day reprieve from load shedding, City Power has managed to bring the backlog down to around 2 000 call logs,” Phalatse said.
Phalatse said more work was still outstanding to deal with the damage done by the floods in communities. She said there was still a need for humanitarian aid and support for affected families.
“We have submitted a report to the national government for them to classify this emergency as a state of disaster.”
Phalatse thanked residents for their patience as the city continued to do repair work in areas that were affected by the floods.
It was not clear if all of the power complaints logged with City Power would be resolved before Christmas because the city had failed to pay some contractors who were support staff for City Power. Contractors had been told that they would receive money owed to them in small amounts, but most of them had refused to continue working until the city settled its payments.
The City of Joburg was experiencing financial problems because of what the mayor described as a “cash flow mismatch”.
The Star