City Power has cleared a backlog of 3,000 calls caused by the recent devastating storms during a 72-hour reprieve from load shedding.
Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse said this was possible because of the 72-hour load shedding reprieve Eskom gave the city.
Last week Phalatse asked the power utility for a respite because the blackouts were making it almost impossible to repair the infrastructure damaged by the storm.
In a statement on Tuesday Phalatse on Tuesday said City Power had managed to reduce a backlog of 5,000 calls to 2000 after Eskom announced last week that certain areas in the city would be exempt from load shedding to deal the damage caused by floods.
“City Power together with Eskom, used their discretion to decide on the areas that were under pressure with maintenance and repair backlogs to be given some reprieve from load shedding. We can safely say we are on the right track in terms of recovery and dealing with the huge backlogs we encountered due to the recent floods and thunderstorms.”
Phalatse said the estimated cost to normalise the electricity supply following the floods was around R31 million. The overall damage to infrastructure in the city was estimated at R300 million.
“It is in this context that I submitted a detailed report to the national and provincial disaster management centres to classify the ongoing emergency as a state of local disaster.”
“There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and the work will continue until the job is done,” she said.
On 16 December, Phalatse detailed the damage to the national and provincial disaster management centres, asking the government to classify the “ongoing emergency” as a state of local disaster.
The mayor thanked the residents being their patience and understanding as the city continued to battle with the backlog.
Source: Times Live, News24, image from Twitter: @StarFMNews919