Five people were arrested in two separate incidents in Johannesburg on Saturday for tampering with Eskom infrastructure.
In the first incident, three men were arrested in Orlando East, Soweto for allegedly tampering with an Eskom split meter box.
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Community members apprehended the suspects and they were subsequently handed over to the SAPS.
The trio were charged with damage to essential infrastructure and were due to appear before the magistrate’s court in Soweto today, June 1.
In a separate incident also in Orlando East, two men were arrested on Saturday for allegedly tampering with meter boxes and illegally connecting to the Eskom network.
Eskom security personnel caught the pair in the act while on a routine patrol in the area.
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The area is one of the hotspots identified with repeated equipment failure due to illegal connections, meter bypasses and overloading of the network which causes the failure of and explosions at mini substations.
Eskom has continued to implement load reduction during peak hours, in the mornings and evenings, due to the network overloads.
In addition, Eskom said it will continue to intensify its efforts to safeguard assets and ensure they are preserved.
