Eldorado Park residents outraged by power outage

Tensions are rising between the Eldorado Park community and Johannesburg City Power after residents experienced a power outage for almost a week between July 8 and 12.

Patriotic Alliance Ward Councillors Dwain Ponsonby and Juwairiya Kaldine have called a public meeting with Ward 17 and 18 residents and city electricity officials to discuss residents’ concerns at Don Mateman Hall, EXT 5, Eldorado Park, on July 13.

Residents have expressed frustration with the uneven and unfair implementation of load reduction, which they say is worse than load shedding, which provides an inaccurate timetable.

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They accused City Power of singling out Eldorado Park and subjecting it to ridiculous load reduction hours because it was a community of color.

Kaldine said this problem existed even before they were elected as councilors in 2021.

She said City Power does not have enough resources to control the grid, as she explained that when they were maintained by Eskom, they did not have problems when reducing load because it was automatic and punctual.

This means that when Eskom provides a timetable, power cuts are implemented on time and power is restored on time, she added.

She said the problem began to arise when City Power took over responsibility from Eskom after Eskom said it no longer wanted to supply electricity to City Power because it was unable to pay.

“City Power does not have enough Grade A operators because the Eldorado Park substation is a manual substation.

“This means that a Level A operator must be on site to turn the power on and off, but sometimes the operator is no longer there and is unable to restore power, especially at night,” Kaldine said.

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She said Eldorado Park has experienced power outages for the past three years in a row over Easter weekend because the substation burned down.

“We have a new substation that is being built there, but it has been a white elephant since the tenure of former mayor Herman Mashaba under the Democratic Alliance.

“This substation has been around for a long time, we have fought in the city council to get budgets released so that we can continue to operate it, but every year the problem seems never-ending. Every year there are always excuses for not reducing the budgets,” she continued.

She said residents recently complained of being without power for four to six days.

The electricity was actually cut off since Monday evening, the load reduction was from 6pm to 8pm, they cut the electricity at 6pm and the electricity never came back on at 8pm.

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She expressed disappointment at the absence of CoJ Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda, the CEO of City Power and the MMC for Environmental and Infrastructure Services.

“All we’re saying as a community and as city councillors is treat us fairly. If you turn us off, turn us back on in time.

“This is not a community that does not want to pay for services, people are willing to pay, but how do you pay for services when the rental office is still offline?” she asked.

“Not long ago we cut off electricity to Somali shops and gave them two years to apply for single or three phase connections, and people agreed. So we are ready to work with City Power, but they refuse to work with the communities and councillors,” she concluded.

Residents also raised the issue of lack of public participation in the introduction of the R200 service charge by City Power, as they pointed out that poor families will not be able to afford it.

They also demanded an audit of infrastructure and the community to verify whether supply meets the demand of Eldorado Park residents.

Another concerning issue that has caused residents to react is the fact that whenever there are problems with power plants in other areas like Orlando and Lenesia, Eldorado Park is also affected.

City Power chief executive Nelson Rauliku proposed the launch of a pilot project to standardise locations where circuit breakers and meters were not installed.

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He said this would prevent the substations from being tripped because once a household has bypassed the system, when there is an electrical fault, it trips the substation because there are no meters or circuit breakers in every house.

“Let’s be honest, social problems require social solutions, not necessarily technical solutions. We have a new substation that we may be commissioning in two weeks. But if some social problems are not solved, there will always be outages,” Rauliku explained.

“I have to be honest because I don’t want this substation to be in service and then after two weeks it’s down again. The overload will still be there if we don’t find a solution. That’s an honest fact.”

In agreement with the community, Ponsonby proposed that City Power consult and come back with solutions to the challenges raised by residents at the meeting.

A request has also been made to rule out load reduction in Eldorado Park while authorities study possible solutions.