Mapaballo Borotho
- JPOMA has raised an alarm over two infrastructure failures in one week, warning of a growing public safety crisis in Johannesburg.
- The association disputes Mayor Dada Morero’s claim that a transformer did not explode in New Doornfontein, saying evidence points to transformer-related failures.
- JPOMA is calling for urgent city-wide intervention to prevent further disasters and stabilise critical infrastructure.
The City of Johannesburg Property Owners and Management Association (JPOMA) has issued an urgent call for decisive, city-wide intervention following two infrastructure failures in the space of a week.
JPOMA says these major infrastructure failures are escalating into a serious public safety crisis.
On Tuesday morning, an incident in New Doornfontein resulted in a severe electrical event with tragic consequences. One person died, and two others suffered third-degree burns.
The fire explosion led to the collapse of a student residence building in the area. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation; however, there have been reports of a transformer exploding.
“Our investigations confirm that the ground-mounted transformer did not explode; instead, it tripped in response to an incident, functioning as designed to protect itself. The transformer oil is still intact, with no sign of any electrical or transformer-related explosion,” said City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero.
A statement that JPOMA disagrees with. In a statement released by the association on Friday, it said physical evidence strongly suggests that the transformer ruptured from within.
“Evidence from the site, together with independent technical assessments, indicates that the incident was transformer-related and involved failures in compliant installation, as well as the absence or malfunction of essential protective equipment designed to prevent faults from escalating into catastrophic events,” the statement read.
The second incident occurred on Friday morning, when a substation caught fire, leaving the inner city and surrounding areas without lights.
The association says the deterioration of basic infrastructure in the inner city has been evident for more than two decades.
“Daily realities such as power outages, water leaks, unsafe street-level infrastructure and repeated ‘temporary’ fixes are now translating into emergency incidents. This outcome was preventable.”
The association called on the City and its municipal entities to move immediately from reactive incident response to a credible, city-wide intervention programme focused on preventing avoidable disasters and stabilising critical infrastructure.
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