THE CITY of Johannesburg welcomes Eskom’s 3-day reprieve from loadshedding in areas hardest hit by the recent spate of floods that have caused significant damage to power infrastructure.
City Power will, together with Eskom, use their discretion to decide on the areas that may be under pressure with maintenance and repair backlogs to be given some reprieve from loadshedding.
The Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Mpho Phalatse, welcomed the assistance from and collaboration with Eskom.
“Loadshedding has further compounded our challenges with maintenance and repairs of infrastructure that has been severely damaged by the floods. There are approximately 5,000 outstanding calls logged post the flooding, which will need to be attended to, fixed and cleared over the next 72-hours of reprieve,” says the Mayor.
“This approval is critical in our efforts to arrest this emergency following heavy rains.
The focused exemption from loadshedding for the affected areas will enable City Power to swiftly restore electricity supply to affected households and businesses,” says MMC for Environment & Infrastructure Services, Michael Sun.
Torrential rain in large parts of Johannesburg severely damaged substations and other electrical components critical to energy supply.
Although all available technical resources were deployed by City Power, fault finding, and restoration has proved near impossible during long hours of continuous loadshedding.
“I want to thank MMC Sun and City Power CEO, Ms Tshifularo Mashava, and their teams for their dedication and hard work during this strenuous and difficult time. We are doing everything to ensure that power is restored, and residents receive the services they pay for and expect from the City. We expect significant progress over the next few days in the repair and maintenance of affected infrastructure. I want to further thank residents for reporting faults and for their patience as we work to stabilise service delivery operations across the City”, said Mayor Phalatse.
