More than 10 townships in the City of Johannesburg have been electrified in the last five years thanks to City Power.

This is according to Councillor Matshidiso Mfikoe Member of the Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services.

Tabling the Sustainable Services Cluster report during the City’s 2015-2016 Budget debate on Thursday, MMC Mfikoe said the townships that were electrified included Lehae, Lufhereng, Fleurhof, Tshepisong West, Devland extensions 33 and 35, Elias Motsoaledi phase 1 and Narens Farm.

She said the electrification project also covered single sex hostels that had been converted into family units, such as Madala and Helen Joseph hostels in Alexandra and Dube Hostel in Soweto.

Mfikoe said in addition, City Power had installed more than 10 000 street lights across the city.

Upgrading of bulk infrastructure

She said various projects were under way to support “marginalised areas” such as Orange Farm, Diepsloot, Ivory Park and a number of informal settlements.

The projects included the upgrading of bulk infrastructure to support housing initiatives and service delivery. This would cost the City R354 million over the next three years, she said.

Mfikoe added that in his budget speech last week, MMC for Finance Geoffrey Makhubo allocated more than R25.9 billion to the Sustainable Services Cluster, which oversaw and coordinated the bulk of the City’s service delivery.

She said City Power was allocated an operating budget of R15.4 billion for the 2015-2016 financial year and a capital budget of R4.6 billion for the next three years to fund the rollout of the electrification of informal settlements, installation of prepaid meters and smart meters, and the refurbishment of existing infrastructure, among others.

Ongoing roll out of prepaid meters

Mfikoe confirmed that City Power would continue to roll out prepaid electricity meters to secure the City’s revenue streams and to mitigate the impact of load-shedding through load-limiting smart meters.

She said a further R200-million had been set aside for the 2016-2017 financial years’ electrification project.

“The City is sensitive to the plight of its residents, who have to bear the brunt of rolling bouts of load-shedding. When Eskom announced this year that it lacked the generating capacity to meet increasing demand, instead of joining the Eskom bashing bazaar, the City of Joburg convened a summit with organised business aimed at discussing possible and practical solutions to the energy shortages,” she said.