City Power not to blame for losses

Tag : bad power supply
Destruction of City Power's electricity cable is up 323 percentover last year. And the bad news is that residents will have tofoot the bill for damage to appliances caused by the power surgesas a result of vandalism and theft.

According to City Power, it is responsible only for damage causedby its negligence, and not for theft.

Westdene, Joburg, resident Harald Schulz had a three-hour powersurge recently. He took measurements and the line voltage wasaround 300 volts, while the standard is between 220 and 240 volts.

Before going to bed, he measured 427 volts at around midnight. Hiswife witnessed the street lights exploding. A neighbour, a fewhouses away, reported that her TV blew up.

A friend who lives three streets away in Winchester Avenue hadvarious items destroyed, including his electric garage door.Currently there are no working lights in several streets in thearea.

"We discovered a power problem while watching TV and heard variousscary bangs around the house. Luckily we had surge protectors,which saved some of our equipment such as the TV, DVD andcomputer," Schulz said.

However, the following morning he assessed the damage and foundthat numerous pieces of equipment needed to be replaced: three setsof surge protectors at R1 000; a portable phone set at R1 000; twosets of battery chargers at R1 000; a hi-fi at R3 000; a variablepower supply at R2 000; 4 x compact fluorescent lights at R100; atoaster at R500; a set of loudspeakers for the computer at R500; alabel printing machine; and a house alarm at R1 000. Total damagewas about R12 000.

Auckland Park resident Anver Omarjee has on several occasionssuffered thousands of rands' damage because of power surges.

The electrical substation on the corner of Cookham and Richmondstreets, Auckland Park, which supplies electricity to about 12houses in the area, was vandalised in August last year. "Thesub-station/chamber was vandalised and the neutral and earth cableswere stolen. This caused a sudden surge over 400 volts.Consequently, my garage motors, electronic oven, alarm system, etcsuffered damage," he said.

He registered a claim for R18 528,77, supported by quotes to fixthe damages.

In a reply, Alexander Forbes, which handles insurance claims forCity Power, said: "City Power had discovered that the chamber wasvandalised and the neutral and earth cables were stolen, therebyresulting in high voltage that damaged your equipment. Please notethat the policy we have for City Power only covers them fornegligence."

But the story doesn't end there. On May 20 another cable was stolenfrom the same substation.

This time the power supply to Omarjee's computer was damaged. "Ididn't bother with the claim as I expected the same reply as thefirst case," he said.

Eight days later, yet another cable was stolen from the sameelectric chamber, which damaged Omarjee's distribution box. Thiscost him more than R6 500.

Omarjee is angry because City Power has done nothing to protect thesubstation premises. "City Power has become a law unto itself; itneither pays out damages nor does it make any attempt to protectits own premises."

City Power spokesperson Louis Pieterse said he would investigatethe cause of Schulz's power surge. "Unfortunately, if City Powerwasn't negligent, we cannot be held responsible. This is a majorproblem for us, and the fact that incidents of vandalism and thefthave escalated by 323 percent proves this. We sympathise with ourcustomers but we can't control it," he said.