The city’s executive mayor, Clr Mpho Parks Tau, recently announced that 22 arrests were made relating to 109 cases of corruption, collusion, fraud and tempering with the city’s systems.
These cases resulted in R200-million in losses made on the city’s revenue collections.
He said two of the people arrested were City Power employees. Two were CoJ employees and the remainder were external contractors and members of the public.
“Investigations have so far revealed at least 30 Large Power Users (LPUs) in the city are possibly involved in corruption and defrauding the city.
“The city’s investigations, which started in 2013, have seen the city recover at least R107-million of an estimated R200-million loss reported a month ago,” said Clr Tau.
He added that the city originally had 48 cases, and in recent weeks, discovered an additional 61 cases.
More arrests are expected to follow.
Clr Tau said the balance of the losses have already been accounted for in the city’s balance sheet and will not impact on residents’ or business accounts.
He said stringent security measures are being taken to address criminal activities in the city’s power substations.
“To address vandalism and criminal activities, the city is in the process of installing integrated and biometric security systems to manage and monitor access to power substations. Pylon vibration monitoring systems to detect vandalism are also being installed at substations, which are currently being monitored 24 hours a day. Our mandate is to ensure effective and efficient service delivery in the city. We will not tolerate crime, any form of criminal activities, disruptions or tempering with the city’s systems,” said the mayor.
He said the city will continue to report to and work with the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Pravin Gordhan, and the Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, who have been supporting the city in this initiative and other related programmes.
The mayor said that customers who have been experiencing power outages should not consider these as load shedding.
According to him, there has been no load shedding in the city and measures were taken to prevent load shedding.
“The city has been a victim of deplorable acts, which have resulted in unplanned outages which were experienced by some customers. An average of 32 percent of all outages experienced each month is the result of theft and vandalism. 16 percent is caused by damage by third parties and 12 percent is related to stolen cables and illegal connections.
“It is clear that we are not dealing with load shedding issues. We are dealing with power outages caused by criminal activities. We encourage customers to report any power outages or suspicious activities on any power systems as soon as possible for the city to respond more speedily. We have been able to make some of these arrests as a result of anonymous leads given by some community members. We are grateful for the contributions that community members have made in these investigations,” said Clr Tau.
Residents can report illegal connections, cable theft, vandalism and tempering with the city’s systems anonymously to 0800 002 587. Incidents of vandalism or cable theft can also be reported to 011 490-7911/7900/7553.
