City Power stops disconnections in Alex as residents protest

City Power left Riverparks, Alexandra without having disconnected any residential homes despite its threats to cut illegal connections in the area.

Officials had descended on Riverparks on Thursday morning and proceeded to disconnect two homes, but they stopped when a community protest suddenly flared up. 

Angry community members insisted that  they had been paying for electricity and had been given until June 9 to finalise any outstanding payments or payment breaches.

The power utility reconnected the two homes after residents demanded they do so and then left.

City Power’s retreat contrasted with the statement by its CEO, Tshifularo Mashava, on Wednesday, after the residents' protest at the Alexandra Service Delivery Centre following some disconnections in the area.

Mashava said: “City Power will not hesitate to disconnect the entire area from the substation should this unlawful and hostile behaviour continue. We must be clear: City Power’s contractual relationship is with individual account holders, not a collective group whose legitimacy as customers cannot be ascertained.”

Speaking to Sowetan after officials halted the disconnections and left the area, residents said City Power was harassing and intimidating them.

Lesedi Noane said they were suffering for sins they had not committed. 

“They are always playing with us while leaving others alone — people who are actually not paying for electricity. 

“They never go to the Boko Haram informal settlement,” she said. “They are scared to go there, but they come here with vans to intimidate us. We paid R2,000 to install their meters and still get harassed. The R200 electricity we buy doesn’t even last three days.”

We paid R2,000 to install their meters and still get harassed. The R200 electricity we buy doesn’t even last three days

—  Lesedi Noane

Another resident, who did not want to be named, said the power utility was doing wrong, and they felt abused.

“We have 135 wards in Johannesburg, but it’s only Riverpark that City Power claims is consuming too much power — how come?” he asked. “There’s a section called Mahousana here, where City Power themselves did illegal connections, yet they don’t disconnect them. Instead, they come and harass and bully us every day.”  

This isn’t the first time City Power has conducted cut-off operations in the area.

Residents say they’ve been subjected to multiple disconnections despite many of them complying with regulations and paying for electricity. 

Resident Dillo Motshilo said the utility’s failure to fix faulty equipment also contributes to illegal connections. 

“We met with City Power yesterday [Wednesday] and agreed that they would return on June 9 to normalise electricity in the area,” she said. “We said people who breached the system would pay R500. But the truth is, most breaches happen because the meters and keypads burn out. When you report it, City Power takes seven to eight days to come fix it.”

Motshilo said residents felt abused for trying to follow the law. 

“It’s not like people don’t want to pay — we do. But the service from City Power is poor. Meanwhile, places like Tsutsumane, Alexandra, and parts of Lombardy don’t pay for electricity, and nothing happens to them. We comply, and we’re the ones who get punished. We are tired,” she said. 

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