City Power disconnects fifteen businesses in Eldos

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City Power has disconnected over fifteen foreign-owned spaza shops in Eldorado Park that were found to have bypassed electricity meters on Thursday.

According to the power provider, the clamping down on illegal connections and meter bypassing as comes as its part of a comprehensive load reduction strategy across the city.

“From the start of this winter season, City Power has been experiencing high consumption levels, increasing the risks of infrastructure damage and the likelihood of grid collapse,” said utility spokesperson Isaac Mangena.

He said in response to this challenge, they have introduced load management initiatives.

“Those initiatives include the installation of solar geysers in low-income households, microgrids in informal settlements and ripple relays in suburban areas.

“We have also implemented measures such as load curtailment programme for business customers as well. Removing illegal connections is also at the centre of the utility’s comprehensive plans of easing the load on the network.

“Illegal connections and meter tampering are among the most contributing factors to the network overload, often leading to a high number of transformers and mini-substations getting damaged and destroyed,” he remarked.

Mangena highlighted that the problem of backyard businesses is also proving to be a major concern.

City Power to monitor attempt of reconnect

He added; “The majority of homeowners avoid making the necessary applications from the city to get their businesses properly authorised and bulk services upgraded to cater for business requirements.

“We noted that property owners simply connect spaza shops operating in their yards from existing household supply, which has not been fitted to carry excessive load.”

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He also stated that the security team will also be patrolling the area to ensure that those customers do not make any unauthorised attempt of reconnecting supply.

Meanwhile, councillor Juwairiya Kaldine who was part of the operation echoed the entity’s sentiment on the need to reduce consumption.

“These shops have more than three freezers each that adds tremendous stress to the grid. We are cutting the power of all these shops, In order to normalize the grid.

“Let’s be responsible citizens and residents, and continue paying for services, as the city of Joburg can’t operate without collecting revenue,” she added.