Burnt Joburg CBD building had no registered electricity account – City Power

As mop-up operations continue in the Joburg CBD after an abandoned and hijacked building burnt down in Jeppestown, City Power said the property had no registered electricity account.

At least 400 people were left stranded following the fire at the three-storey structure on Sunday morning leading to the deaths of four people.

No electricity account

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said it remains unclear what the actual cause of the fire was in the Joburg CBD. law enforcement agencies and Emergency Services are busy investigating.

“City Power has discovered that the burnt property, which is privately owned, has no registered electricity account. It has therefore been established that the power supply to that building was illegally connected from at least two load centres.”

ALSO READ: Four dead in Jeppestown building fire [VIDEO]

Illegal connections

Mangena said City Power has been intensifying efforts to address the crippling problem of illegal connections in the Joburg CBD through the introduction of the load reduction campaign.

“From June this year, City Power has dealt with over 120 cases of illegal connections across Johannesburg, with multiple of those operations undertaken across the Inner-City Power. This month alone, we have conducted two cutoff operations in Jeppestown, the area around where a three-story building burnt.

“Our Revenue Protection Team is yet again in the area disconnecting and confiscating cables illegally wired into our network at the burnt building and the street around Jeppe Hostel. So far, the team has removed over 4 000kg of Arial Bundle Cables worth R120 000, since this morning and are continuing with the work of removing additional wires,” Mangena said.

Officials attacked

Mangena added that the majority of properties in the Joburg CBD are factories and businesses suspected to have been hijacked, with services such as water and electricity, connected unlawfully.

Mangena said efforts by City Power to remove such unauthorised connections regularly are often met with violent resistance, with “Jeppestown being a hotspot of such resistance.”

“Two weeks ago, one of the City Power contractors was held hostage in Turfontein, during a meter auditing exercise. That exercise, which is part of our day-to-day operations, was to determine if customers had illegal connections or meter tampering.

“During a dispute, the contractor was held by the property owners against his will. Thankfully, he was safely released following intervention by City Power security and JMPD,” Mangena said.

Mangena added that in 2022, one of the City Power employees was nearly killed during a cut-off operation in Hillbrow.

“The 53-year-old spent months in hospital under intensive care after he was repeatedly hit in the head with blunt objects and stones while trying to disconnect a property that was illegally connected.”

Usindiso

In May, the commission of inquiry into a devastating fire at the Usindiso building in Marshalltown, in the Joburg CBD which claimed 76 lives, found the City of Johannesburg responsible – and recommended that its entity, the Johannesburg Property Company, be held accountable.

Twelve children were among those killed in the fire, which also left 86 other people injured.

ALSO READ: Three injured, one killed in separate fire incidents in Joburg