Metro police in full force at Riverpark earlier before the big switch off. Photo: Supplied

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The Riverpark Crisis Committee said it has agreed to the terms and conditions set by City Power to switch power back on for the entire township after it was switched off on May 29.

Spokesperson for the crisis committee Matshidiso Legoka said residents had previously agreed with the utility to restore electricity in the township and carry out an audit and normalise the meters as requested, but City Power reneged on the agreement and suddenly the entity’s technicians accompanied by Metro police descended on Riverpark, claiming they had come to cut off all the people that had tempered with their meters.

“We then pointed out to them that we have just reached an agreement with City Power that they can come and audit the meters and normalise them and issue written warning to those who had bypassed the meters never to do it again. “City Power technicians would not hear all of that and all hell broke loose, and the technicians fled the township. We followed them to the Alexandra Service Delivery Centre and indicated to them to follow what we had agreed upon. No one wanted to listen and then cut off power for the entire Riverpark,” Legoka said.

After that, Legoka said the City Power terminated the power to the entire Riverpark area, and the community spent three weeks without power. “We then renegotiated the same agreement with the utility that they can come and audit and normalise the
meters as we are prepared to pay for electricity like everybody else,” he said. Legoka said this is when they finally switched power back on after initially claiming it was an outage but due to pressure, they succumbed and said they will only switch it back on.

The conditions were that residents allow them to audit and normalise the meters and that residents buy R200 electricity upfront and that those who had done so must amount to 80 percent of the entire residents of Riverpark, Legoka said. Legoka said they warned that unless that figure was reached, they would come to
carry out the audit and normalisation of meters but would simply switch off the entire township again, this Friday [June 6].

“We are waiting with baited breadth to hear what the outcome will be, or we will not have electricity once again. We are not sure whether we have reached that target of 80 percent or not,” Legoka said.