City Power urges communities to combat crime against electricity infrastructure

City Power has called on local communities and businesses take part in a programme to protect critical infrastructure, minimise power outages, and increase revenue generation.

The regional power utility has been plagued by cable theft as it battles to repair and maintain critical infrastructure in several areas.

Cable theft

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said cable theft, vandalism, electricity theft in the form of metre tampering and illegal connections has a huge impact on its operations.

“This results in significant revenue loss and a negative impact on service delivery to residents of Johannesburg. Since the start of the fiscal year, the entity has recorded approximately 1 300 incidents of cable theft and vandalism, with arrests approaching 200.”

Mangena said City Power recorded 2 175 incidents of cable theft and vandalism in the 2021/2022 fiscal year.

ALSO READ: City Power cuts off Apartheid Museum’s power for R1.8 million debt

Partnerships

“The community partnership programme seeks to build long-term partnerships with communities and the business fraternity through the sharing of information.”

“City Power pledges to establish sustainable partnerships with Community-based Structures (CBS) to protect municipal electricity infrastructure from crimes such as theft, damage, tampering, or illegal connections and also maintain stable and open communication on security risk factors and vulnerabilities affecting City Power’s electricity infrastructure,” Mangena said.

Westbury gang violence

Meanwhile, City Power has warned that the eruption of gang violence in Westbury and surrounding areas is affecting service delivery and that it’s concerned about the safety of its employees.

This comes after the 38-year-old leader of the notorious Fast Guns gang Keenen Sheldon Ebrahim was gunned down in an apparent hit in the west of Johannesburg on Thursday.

Mangena said that there were no outstanding outages in those areas at the moment.

“However, given the impact of load shedding, vandalism and cable theft, amongst others, there are no guarantees that the affected areas will not experience power outages during this volatile period.

ALSO READ: City Power pulls workers from volatile Westbury after Fast Guns gang boss gunned down