City Power officials removing illegal cables. Picture: City Power
City Power removed and confiscated approximately 60,000 kg of cables valued at around R6 million from the Kanana, Rabie Ridge informal settlements on Wednesday.
The utility said the informal settlement is one of many across the city of Johannesburg that are contributing significantly towards network overload and infrastructure damage, leading to prolonged outages.
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City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the extreme levels of illegal connections in the area are also contributing towards the enforcement of load reduction to avoid complete destruction of the network.
“In this area alone, City Power has replaced a total of 10 transformers from August this year. In August, three transformers were replaced, four in September and now halfway through October, we have already had three damaged transformers.
“This is not only highly unsustainable and excessively costly to manage, but it’s unfairly affecting customers in neighbouring areas that are actually paying for services. In response to this challenge, we have committed to conducting routine network monitoring and physical assessments, to ensure that whenever a case of illegal connection is spotted, we act swiftly and decisively to deal with it,” Mangena said.
Mangena said City Power it carried out a similar operation in Kanana a few months ago.
“We carried out the removal of illegal connection operation where we cleared around 18,000 kilograms of cables that were connected to our grid.
“Last week, community members staged a public demonstration outside our Midrand Service Delivery Centre offices, to raise their concern about a prolonged outage which was caused by a damaged pole-mounted transformer. That transformer failed due to illegal connections. A new transformer has been installed and we hope that with illegal connections removed, it will hold the load and remain operational for a long time, Mangena said.
City Power has called on residents, particularly those who are paying for services to help the utility monitor and report suspicious activities around its network.
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