The City of Johannesburg and its electricity utility, City Power, are set to forward a formal complaint to the National Electricity Regulator (NER) over a damning report, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday.
The NER found City Power’s supply infrastructure to be in a serious state of disrepair, worsened by a lack of maintenance, and insufficient funds being budgeted.
City Power deputy president Silus Zimu said the NER report, released last week, contained inaccurate information.
He said that both the utility and the regulator had agreed the inaccuracies would be removed before the report was released.
Brian Hlongwa, a member of the mayoral committee responsible for municipal services in the city, said: ”We know … what the challenges are. We know the cost of providing the service, in putting our proposals for tariffs. The issues of affordability are important because … the rate payer pays for this.”
Hlongwa said it is for this reason that City Power cannot be told by the NER that it is underspending.
Zimu said NER representatives were taken to problematic substations, and nothing was hidden from them.
An NER consultant came up with a detailed report, which was discussed with City Power, he said.
City Power said it has spent R450-million on upgrading and refurbishing the city’s supply network in the financial year of 2004/05. This amount is set to increase to R675-million for the financial year of 2005/06.
City Power said this aggressive spending on infrastructure has seen a reduction in the number of power outages by 37% compared with last year.
The complaint will be sent to the NER’s board of directors. — Sapa