City Power has complied with a court order to appoint 129 contractors as an interim measure to do emergency repairs to its crumbling infrastructure.
Judge Frank Snyckers ruled in September that City Power must embark on emergency procurement for labour contractors by using a closed list of bidders that had already been assessed.
Snyckers said the process needed to be completed by October 31, and that the companies currently responsible for the contract should continue as an interim measure.
The R1.5bn tender was meant to be distributed among labour contractors responsible for outage maintenance repairs. The matter went to court after City Power had flagged issues with the procurement process and approached the court to allow it to readvertise the contract.
City Power has spent more than R1bn over the last three years on enlisting the services of independent contractors to help existing staff.
Over the weekend, claims started circulating that the utility would not be able to handle the volume of call-outs because contracts had ended on October 31 with service providers.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena confirmed that all labour contractors were awarded with appointment letters.
“City Power hereby officially announces that all labour contract companies have received their letters of appointment, and that some of them are already involved in the repair and replacement of the electricity network that was damaged by the storm over the weekend,” Mangena said.
He said for the purpose of a smooth on-boarding into City Power, the companies have been divided into mainly three categories. The first category was for those contractors who had already gone through training and orientation. The second category are contractors in training, and the third group still needs to sort out their compliance documentation.
Mangena said the contractors would supplement City Power teams on a shift system and work under the supervision of their depot management at all times.
“There is no crises of lack of labour contracts,” said Mangena.
According to City Power’s Twitter account, on Wednesday alone the city had experienced 14 power outages in just seven hours. The main areas affected were Mondeor, Gresswold, Tshepisong, Randburg, Ruimsig and Cydna. There were also planned outages in Marlboro and Parkhurst.
This week, residents of Florida, Florida Park, Floracliff, Discovery and Selwyn in Johannesburg were left in the dark for four days without electricity after a power outage.
Bad weather caused severe damage at Nursery substation.
Florida police station and two healthcare facilities, Life Flora hospital and Discovery Clinic, have been operating on generator power since the outage.
The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that decrepit infrastructure, illegal connections, vacancies in crucial engineering posts and underspending of the capital budget were some of the reasons behind regular power cuts across Johannesburg.
Power cuts and illegal connections cost more than R400m in revenue annually, said city spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane.
Mangena said more than 90% of power interruptions were caused by cable theft, network overloading, illegal connections, third party damage and vandalism of the electricity network.
City Power has partnered with Johannesburg metro police and the city’s group forensic investigative service to monitor the network, and arrest and prosecute cable thieves.
