In a bid to fight the scourge of illegal connections in Commercia and Rabie Ridge Ext 4, the Midrand Service Delivery Centre embarked on illegal connections cut-off operation.
This happened on May 4 when centre officials, along with its revenue protection team ambushed the two townships.
They were accompanied by South African Police Service and Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) members on the operation against illegal connections.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said in Commercia, the illegal connections were causing cable faults and overloading, which resulted in non-ending outages affecting businesses and the community at large.
He said illegal connections affect the quality of power supply which often includes overloading of the grid leading to transformer failures.
“While in Rabie Ridge, the area was experiencing overloading and failure of transformers, which also resulted in non-ending outages in the area. We are hoping that now that we have removed the illegal connections that were causing unplanned outages, the volume of unplanned outages will be minimal in both areas,” said Mangena.
He said they will continue to monitor illegal connections to avoid putting pressure on their network and having many unplanned outages.
“We have also asked the police to act against those who steal and sell electricity.”
JMPD spokesperson Xolani Fihla confirmed that some of their officers in Region A were part of the operation.
“And our officers were there to provide safety and security for the City Power officials who were removing the illegal electricity connections in Commercia and Rabie Ridge respectively,” concluded Fihla.
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ICYMI: City Power removes illegal connections in Rabie Ridge
