Johannesburg - City Power's plan to address the growing challenge of power outages in Naturena and its surroundings has largely been welcomed by the residents.
Following a community meeting with residents of Naturena over two weeks ago, City Power promised to replace the underground network, which consists of copper cables prone to theft, with low-value aluminium conductors.
The project was launched on March 13, 2023, and is expected to be completed this week.
The MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Councillor Jack Sekwaila, together with the CEO of City Power, Tshifularo Mashava, gave a progress update from the site of the project in Eikenhof on Wednesday.
Mashava said the ultimate goal of this project is to ensure that they reduce network interruptions in Naturena, head towards a more stable and reliable overhead system and that this project will go a long way in lowering cable theft.
"We are not going to allow criminals to continue stealing electricity from residents of Naturena, and that’s why, despite our limited resources, we insisted on expediting this project."
Mashava said City Power loses over R4 billion across the city from cable theft and vandalism every year.
"R2.9 million has been lost in Eikenhof alone this financial year, which cannot be tolerated."
Sekwaila said R9.5 million was allocated for this project, which is expected to begin in early April.
"The project has created employment for 10 local residents, and my department will engage with the new Minister of Electricity in due course."
"We are excited about the progress made in this project, which goes a long way in ensuring that we fulfil our mandate to provide uninterrupted power supply to the residents, and recently, we have been experiencing a lot of challenges in the provision of electricity to our residents."
"We will have a meeting with Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramakgopa to see how the national government can assist us in our efforts to provide residents of Johannesburg with an uninterrupted supply of electricity," Sekwaila said.
The Star