by Thinus Ferreira
The Carte Blanche presenter Govan Whittles took to social media to claim that City Power Johannesburg technicians cut off electricity and tried to get a bribe to reconnect it, something which City Power disputes.
UPDATE: See City Power's response which has been added to this article.
On Wednesday last week the Carte Blanche presenter Govan Whittles decided to go public on social media and on X, formerly known as Twitter, and directly told City Power Johannesburg that one of its "technicians disconnected our electricity illegally and asked for a bribe to switch it back on".
That is after Govan Whittles' family had been without electricity for days last week.
Govan Whittles also blasted the utility for its lack of communication, saying "you're not responding to my messages or allocating our ticket number".
City Power Johannesburg responded and within a day the electricity to Govan Whittles' house was reconnected.
On social media Whittles said that "teams came out and reconnected our power supply. Thank you to councillor Sarah Wissler - the Joburg city manager and Allister from City Power for attending to this matter urgently".
"I'm very grateful to the Johannesburg city councillor and officials and City Power Johannesburg management who helped me get this power issue sorted. But I know most of us in this city can't get things done through tweeting. We need to expose them together".
Govan Whittles tells me "the incident actually happened while I was on a shoot in Cape Town".
"Someone made me aware of the attempt to solicit a bribe at my home. This follows an extended period of difficulty with City Power – not just at my residence, but also for many other residents in our street. I think many South Africans can relate to the same type of frustration that spurs you on to want to tweet about it – which is what I did."
Similar to what Carte Blanche does on M-Net (DStv 101) on Sunday evenings at 19:00, City Power has now started an investigation into the bribery charges.
"Since City Power has now launched an official investigation, I can't comment much more on the specifics," Govan Whittles says.
"However, everything that Carte Blanche stands for translates to our daily life. No matter how big or small, we will always shine a light on injustices and wrongdoing - even in our personal capacity. This incident serves as another example of exactly that."
UPDATE: Thursday 12 September 2024 20:40pm:
A City Power spokesperson says "We confirm that the incident in question involving a complaint publicized on X, Govan Whittles, was reported to City Power and the following was uncovered during preliminary investigation. A relative of Mr Whittles logged an outage."
"Our technicians were dispatched on 3 September 2024 to attend to the call. When they arrived at the customer's premises, they conducted their investigation, which involves meter audit, as standard practice, to establish possible causes of the logged outage."
"The technicians soon realized that the customer's power supply was off because it had been disconnected for a failure to pay an outstanding electricity bill amounting to R71,064.36."
"At that stage, the customer, who knew about their debt to City Power, had not made any prior arrangement in the form of a signed Acknowledgement of Debt (AOD)."
"This is worrying because despite the fact that the customer knew that supply was cut off due to an unpaid bill, they cited a false reason when they logged a call to City Power."
"In line with our standard operating procedures, the technicians informed the customer that power would remain disconnected until the debt was settled, or a suitable repayment arrangement was made with the City of Johannesburg (COJ)."
"Our technicians did not solicit or accept any bribes. According to their account, the owner of the property is the one who offered a bribe (R50 for each and a pack of 6 unspecified drinks) in an attempt to convince technicians to reinstate supply. I emphasize that this remains an allegation by the technicians."
"The customer subsequently made arrangements with COJ and made a downpayment of R10 000 and signed an AOD. Power supply was then restored on 5 September 2024, following a reconnection call."
- This article's original heading was updated from its original "When a City Power technician tried to bribe a Carte Blanche presenter".
