City Power has notified residents of their decision to suspend all planned maintenance they deem as non-critical during the period of the Covid-19 lockdown.
As such, all planned maintenance scheduled between 26 March and 16 April has been suspended; however, critical or emergency maintenance will still be conducted.
“The suspension is to avoid inconvenience for customers and ensure that all of our resources are geared towards attending to unplanned outages and emergency maintenance,” said City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena.
Mangena continued to reference Cyril Ramaphosa and said that the City of Johannesburg’s approach to responding to the threat of the coronavirus is one that seeks to “Prevent, contain, and manage the spread of the virus through an efficient and equitable deployment of resources to regions and the most vulnerable areas”.
This suspension is one of the extra measures taken by the City to ensure compliance with the declared State of National Disaster as well as the lockdown, according to Mangena.
Mangena then covered a topic confirmed by Ward 89 councillor, Amelia Bester, on 26 March: water and power account arrears during the lockdown. In accordance with the credit management by-laws, a few customers had their water and/ or power services disconnected prior to the lockdown. This decision has since been revised and as such, Mayor Geoff Makhubo has urged any customers whose service was disconnected before the lockdown to please make the necessary arrangements to ensure that their services are restored.
“As City Power, we have already set systems in place to ensure that essential services continue while ensuring that we protect and minimise the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our workforce and residents,” said Mangena.
The following non-critical planned maintenance operations are suspended:
• 30 March – Windsor Substation
• 3 April – Bond/ Oak Substation
• 5 April – Rhinoceros Substation
• 5 April – Harley/ Kent Substation
• 6 April – Harley/ Surrey Substation
• 18 April – Olifantsvlei Substation
• 20 April – Fontainebleau Substation
These dates will be rescheduled, and City Power will communicate the changed dates within due course.
“Please note that City Power will carry out any critical emergency maintenance during the period of lockdown,” concluded Mangena.
