City Power’s new attempt to strengthen communication with residents fails to address the real crisis: their ongoing failure to respond to residents’ enquiries timeously. The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Johannesburg notes this initiative as an attempt to improve communication, which is welcomed; however, this drive brings nothing new, as it will be using channels that already exist and adding no real capacity.
Residents are accustomed to escalating issues to ward councillors because City Power routinely ignores logged and escalated faults, even when councillors escalate issues through official channels. Most of the platforms promoted now, such as call centres, reference numbers, and councillor WhatsApp groups, have long been in place.
Attempts to sideline ward councillors through ineffective escalation groups will not succeed. Councillors are constitutionally mandated representatives of residents and will continue to intervene when service delivery collapses.
If City Power’s intention is genuine engagement, it must explain why the physical addresses of its depots were deliberately omitted. Residents have a right to know where to go when call centres, WhatsApp groups, and escalation platforms fail, as they repeatedly do. Withholding depot locations undermines transparency and shields City Power from direct accountability.
City Power is reminded of councillors’ obligations by:
The Municipal Structures Act (Act 117 of 1998) mandates ward councillors to represent community interests and ensure that service delivery failures are addressed.
City Power must:
- Account for prolonged outages,
- Investigate contractor conduct,
- Publish physical depot addresses,
- Restore functional escalation systems, and
- Respect the constitutional role of ward councillors.
Residents escalate to councillors out of desperation and necessity, not convenience.
Until City Power becomes responsive, transparent, and accountable and, in some instances, does not ignore even councillors, these issues will continue.
Anything less is an attempt to manage public perception while residents remain without power, reframing a service delivery failure as a communication problem and recycling exhaustive communicational solutions that are already active but ineffective.
The DA will be scrutinizing the implications of this announcement, comparing it with the City of Johannesburg’s constitutional mandate and the mandate of councillors, and respond accordingly as we fight for dignity and equality in basic services for residents of Johannesburg.