City Power, the City of Johannesburg’s electricity supply company, has warned it is running out of money to fix crucial infrastructure as load shedding, vandalism and theft take their toll.
The company said in a statement issued late on Thursday that has been losing on average two mini substations per day due to theft and vandalism, with Roodepoort in the city’s western flank worst affected. The mini substations are also blowing up as a result of Eskom’s constant power cuts.
“Since the recent higher stages of load shedding, City Power has been losing mini substations faster than we can replenish them,” it said. It warned the problem was fast depleting the company’s budget for the current financial year.
“By Wednesday this week, City Power was in need of at least 14 mini substation boxes to deal with several outages in different areas.”
The city has replaced more than 390 mini substations in the past year, at a cost to ratepayers of R200-million. This, it said, has left a “huge dent” in its budget.
Last week, Joburg MMC for environment & infrastructure services Michael Sun issued an extraordinary plea to communities in the city to help it deal with a widening scourge of infrastructure theft.
Sun said residents need to “play a more active role in 2023 as infrastructure critical to providing basic services … remains under siege from vandals and thieves”. – © 2023 NewsCentral Media
