Living in South Africa means expecting Eskom to announce load shedding and switching off the lights. But living in Northriding means expecting to wake up to no power regardless of the scheduled load shedding times. The reason why Northriding has been constantly trending on Twitter is because of random power outages in the suburb and the masses are tired ...
Electricity has been restored in Northriding after 20 hours 🤡
— Sifiso (@CrazeeFistaz) February 21, 2022
What is going on in the Northriding area??? We continually have power cuts!!!
— Ursula (@Ursula88130488) February 20, 2022
City Power created a Twitter account (@CityPowerjhb) in 2011 to interact with its customers. This allowed customers to alert City Power about their dissatisfactions, report faults and outages in their areas in Johannesburg. Customers have been doing exactly that for months, complaining about one specific area, Northriding in Randburg. In a statement released 15 February 2022 via Twitter, City Power stated that “two distributors had tripped during the process of restoration, causing delays”. Another statement of the same format was released five days later stating that “the cause of the outage is unknown”.
In the early hours of 22 February 2022, City Power released a short statement addressing the issue and promising to “keep customers updated on developments”. What is striking is that City Power still has not resolved the issue or at least informed residents about the real cause of the frequent outages.
The residents did not waste any time and started expressing their grievances and dissatisfaction under the hashtag #Northriding. The “team” that is supposedly on-site doing investigations since last year, has not yet figured out what is causing the outages.
When do you guys ever know what the cause of the outage is?
It's going to take your team 2 hours to discover that it's the same issue from last week and the week before that.— Ave_Songsmith (@Ave_Songsmith) February 22, 2022
The statements signed off by various personnel from customer care shows that City Power acknowledges the inconvenience caused. Nonetheless, residents are still livid because City Power is starting to sound like a broken record. Residents have threatened to protest, sue and leave the suburb. Check out these tweets by Northriding residents and local businesses.
What’s the point in logging further calls for #northriding when you are “already aware of the outage”, yet you have the audacity to ask us to log more calls and then close the ticket shortly after because there are too many tickets open. Stop beating around the bush and FIX IT!
— Micaro Estate Management (@MicaroEM) February 22, 2022
As usually there is no electricity in #northriding @CityPowerJhb
— B! (@wandidyn) February 22, 2022
We’re going on 11 hours now with no power. I hate it here haowa #Northriding
— 얼로 (@mpitse_olo) February 21, 2022
Guys, this thing of tweeting and disappearing when power is restored isn't doing us any good. We need a more proactive approach. We need to gather at the authorities one Saturday and have a peaceful demonstration and demand answers. Incompetence is at play here.#Northriding
— Peter Van Mbangu (@VanMbangu) February 15, 2022
Always no power on a Tuesday in Northriding. I see a pattern…
— Mitzi Reitz (@Mitzeee) February 22, 2022
#Northriding is the worst place to stay. @CityPowerJhb what do you need us the residents to do for the situation to really be solved. I've been here for only 3 months and I've had enough already. @Radio702 @SABCNews @EFFSouthAfrica please help us
— TsaSione (@DifelaSanyane) February 20, 2022
The Joburg DA Ward Councillor, Devon Steenkamp took to his Twitter to address the residents. The issue might be resolved soon, but don’t be surprised if you see #Northriding trending again soon.
City power has confirmed they working on a solution as they know what the issues are,they also confirmed it will be released soon,councillors are chasing all the time for this report & what City Power going to do,beyond unacceptable how Northriding residents and businesses suffer
— Cllr Devon Steenkamp 🇿🇦 (@THEDEVCHEV) February 20, 2022
Written by Tendani Rabali.
