City Power has continued to embark on electricity cut-off operations in the Joburg city centre, targeting bad buildings.
Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers
The City of Joburg's power utility, City Power, has continued its intense electricity cut-off operations targeting non-paying tenants of alleged hijacked buildings within the bustling Johannesburg Central Business District (CBD).
Following a series of enforcement actions in various suburbs, including Randburg, earlier this week, the utility's Revenue Protection Unit expanded its operations into Braamfontein and Berea on Thursday, focusing particularly on Woodridge and Eaglewhite flats.
Manoko Moya, representing the power utility, explained that these actions stem from numerous reports of illegal electrical connections in some buildings.
"In terms of law, we are cutting off these buildings to ensure the safety of residents in protection of our infrastructure. We also encourage residents to make the necessary arrangements and fulfil these arrangements to avoid their electricity being switched off," Moya said.
However, community voices have risen against the latest cut-off operations. A local leader at the Eaglewhite flats, speaking on the condition of anonymity, expressed frustration.
He said: "It is sad what is happening to us. We are residents of this place and not owners. They want us to show them the papers of ownership, but we do not have those; the only thing we have are the receipts that we are paying rent here."
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena justified the aggressive approach, claiming that certain buildings are hijacked, and that tenants are not honouring payment obligations for municipal services.
"This operation focused on two major hijacked properties, often referred to as bad buildings, where unlawful reconnections, meter bypassing, and electricity theft continue to undermine the network, drive revenue losses, and place communities at risk," said Mangena.
A City Power employee is disconnecting power cables of one of the alleged bad buildings in the city centre.
Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers
This week, the utility also disconnected the power supply to the 50-unit Oasis on Pine complex in Randburg CBD following a thorough audit that revealed the building was overloading the network and failing to comply with safety regulations.
Impacted residents will remain without electricity until necessary issues are rectified.
IOL reported that John Mabena, the manager for Unplanned Power Outages at the Randburg Service Delivery Centre, noted that frequent outages in the suburb triggered the need for a compliance audit.
"This area has experienced frequent outages, almost daily. During our investigations, our teams repeatedly discovered burnt cables, which have caused significant inconvenience to customers and raised concerns about possible overloading on the network," Mabena stated.