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The Democratic Alliance is calling for a temporary load-shedding suspension for wards 66, 67 and 118 in east Johannesburg as residents face a third month of power outages due to failures at the Observatory and Bellevue substations.

In December last year a fire at the Observatory substation cut power for more than seven days to thousands of residents in Yeoville, Bellevue, Bertrams, Upper Houghton, Kensington, Bezuidenhout Valley, Cyrildene, Dewetshof, Observatory, Bruma and surrounding areas.

Compounding the crisis, was the need to repair the cable from the Observatory substation to the Bellevue substation.

Residents who struggled without electricity, was forced to throw away rotten food from fridges.

But power outages continued after the repair, which City Power claimed had solved the problem.

The past week has been miserable for residents, with different reasons given for outages affecting different suburbs, and some people being out for days on end.

City Power has blamed residents for using too much power, and now says cables need a major upgrade, and a new transformer for the overloaded substations.

I share the scepticism of residents about City Power excuses for an unacceptable situation. It appears there was substandard repair work and a lack of forward planning.

The cabling in these old suburbs should have been replaced many years ago.

City Power now say disruptions can be expected for the rest of the year as a new transformer is purchased and installed.

Local DA ward councillors Carlos da Rocha and Neuren Pietersen are inundated with complaints, and have set up crisis WhatsApp groups with hundreds of members, but they have limited powers to escalate cases.

The DA is launching a petition to halt load-shedding to affected residents until the substation problem is fixed.

This will not only provide relief to residents, but prevent further breakdowns from ageing infrastructure that is continually shut off and on. It will also speed up repairs as technicians cannot work on the network when it is off.

The petition reads as follows: We, the undersigned, hereby petition City Power to halt load shedding in areas served by the Observatory and Bellevue substations until the promised upgrades have been completed to ensure reliable and sufficient power supply to these areas.

We hope for a speedy and positive response from City Power.

Issued by Jack Bloom MPL - DA Johannesburg East Constituency Head