Johannesburg authorities responsible for the power supply have clashed over who is to blame for the frequent outages in the city.
City Power says that insufficient funding provided by the City of Johannesburg before the 2003/04 financial year had tied its hands in the upgrading of the aging network.
The city, the 95% owner of City Power, denies the accusation, saying that City Power had been given funds and was responsible for the decision to use these for the upgrading of the network or for network expansion.
City Power spokesperson Sol Masolo says that in the past, large portions of available funds had to be directed towards “expansion and new developments” and that this had contributed to problems with the ageing network.
Masolo says that City Power was established in 2001 and that the first time money was made available for major upgrading was in the 2003/04 financial year. This R200-million has been invested in laying 240km of new cables in Roode-poort and -Randburg.
The frequent power outages that have plagued Johannesburg during the past few years have resulted in a number of claims laid against City Power for loss of earnings.
According to City Power, 70% of Johannesburg’s electricity infrastructure is between 20 and 40 years old and a further 7% is older than 40 years.
The five-year network master plan, which was devised by consultants for City Power, is now in its first year and will cost R400-million to R600-million a year to upgrade the network. City Power says that if sufficient funds were made available then the network should be “stable and reliable” by the end of 2008.