Johannesburg residents are feeling the heat as they lash out at City Power for its delayed response times to power outages, outside of the rolling blackouts schedule.
The ongoing rolling blackouts crisis, caused by Eskom’s failing coal-fired power plants, has put immense pressure on City Power to provide an uninterrupted power supply to its customers.
Households across the City have reported extended periods of power outages, leaving many in dire straits.
For this family, being cut off from electricity for more than 40 hours came at an almost lethal price.
Ruben Nadesan says his infirm mother relies on a ventilator full-time. And last week’s power outage could have cost his mother, her life. It was a blessing in disguise that she was actually hospitalised at the time of the power outage.
Nadesan says, “If she was home, she would need the oxygen and she wouldn’t have got it because we have an inverter that lasts for about four hours. But now this [rolling blackouts] took forty hours. So, she would have died at home because she wouldn’t have had oxygen. That’s scary because we are trusting the municipality to help us when we need electricity.”
Ruben says trying to get the matter resolved has been an uphill battle and a nightmare.
“These are basic things, respond on time, follow up, let us know, the managers, I even phoned the councillor and nothing happened.”
City Power is investigating the matter. City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says, “Remotely, we realised that this property was not buying electricity and when we arrived we realised that there was an open circuit on that meter and that the last time it traded was in December.”
Eskom announced a prolonged Stage 6 period of rolling blackouts this week, due to the frequent malfunctions at its power plant fleets.
