City won’t tolerate cable theft

eTHEKWINI Municipality will not tolerate cable theft or illegal power connections. The stern warning came from Mayor James Nxumalo who said the city was inundated with complaints from the public about power outages resulting from the criminal acts of electricity and cable theft.

He said cable and electricity theft often resulted in devastating and tragic consequences, such as loss of life as well as damage to infrastructure which cost the Municipality approximately R230 million annually.

“In many instances innocent children, including toddlers die when they come into contact with uninsulated electrical wires in their homes, in streets and in the open fields where they play,” he said.

Nxumalo said offenders had an inflated sense of entitlement in both attitude and behaviour which would no longer be tolerated.

“It pains me to see some members of our society reducing themselves to such levels of lawlessness. The City’s ratepayers are the backbone of this Municipality and they are often inconvenienced by these power outages leading to the reduced enjoyment of the services they pay for,” he said.

He said electricity and cable thieves must be stopped, not only because of the impact on people’s daily lives andin the long term, on the economy and job creation, but also because of the deadly consequences.

“The negative impacts of illegal electricity connections include the hefty costs of replacement of infrastructure and hiring security, the shutdown of business operations, loss of income and loss of exports. Cable theft also results in power, communication lines and transport network outages and leads to negative investor perceptions,” he said.

He said the city had extended services to all struggling residents living in informal settlements by providing them with interim services which included water and sanitation as well as electricity to qualifying informal settlements.

He called on all residents to act in a responsible manner saying that in the spirit of late former President Nelson Mandela, such incidents should not exist in our society.

Nxumalo further urged all citizens to demonstrate civic pride and a sense of co-ownership of our resources, assets and the environment we live in.

“We should all play our part towards enhancing the economic, social and cultural diversity of our City, by not vandalising Municipal or community infrastructure and infringing by-laws,” said Nxumalo.

“Acts of vandalism taking place in our communities cannot be addressed by the Municipality and police alone. They require vigilance from us as community members. We must not look away when we know that our relatives, neighbours and friends are involved in these illicit activities,” he said.

The scourge of illegal electricity connection has been an ongoing challenge in the Municipality.

Several initiatives and modifications to the infrastructure have been taken to minimise the impact of illegal connections.
These include:

•Frequent removal of illegal connections: The city’s illegal services contractor teams, escorted by the security guards remove illegal connections on a regular basis. Some of the perpetrators of these illegal activities have been arrested however, charges are often dropped due to the lack of tangible evidence and the low fines imposed are not a deterrent;

•Affected service connections have been converted from underground mains to overhead mains, to minimise the interruption of supply to these customers;

•The overhead, bare copper, low voltage circuits have been replaced with aerial bundled conductor (ABC) as a deterrent to tapping onto the exposed copper lines;

•Circuits have been reconfigured to reduce the interruption of supplies;

•Awareness programmes have been conducted to educate customers/citizens on safety, reporting of the theft of electricity and the consequences of connecting electricity illegally;

•The Municipality has previously deployed security guards in areas with high cable theft incidents, but this initiative was discontinued after a guard was shot dead;

•Short poles have been replaced with longer ones to prevent access to the overhead cables/connections.

Nxumalo invited the public to share their ideas with the City including any advanced cable theft prevention methods which could help in the fight against this crime.

Any suspicion of cable theft must be reported to the following numbers:

•Electricity’s call centre 080 13 13 111,sms : 083 700 0819 or email custocare@elec.durban.gov.za

•Cable Theft Hotline 031 311 9611

•SAPS 10111

•Metro Police Emergency Line 031 361 0000

Reports of electricity theft should be made to Electricity’s Contact Centre. The minimum response time is 48 hours.