City Power contractor bust for electricity infrastructure sabotage

A City Power contractor has been arrested for sabotage after he was found tampering with essential electricity infrastructure inside a substation.

City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava has welcomed the arrest.

Sabotage

“The suspect was found inside a City Power switching substation in the Roodepoort area with working equipment. It is not clear how he gained entry, but his actions nearly killed some City Power operators and technicians who were working on the network downstream.

“While City Power operators were working on the repairs, they isolated the switching substation for safety purposes. By sheer luck they tested the cables and other infrastructure again before starting their work only to find that the cables were still live. They went back to the transmission station to check.

“They found the suspect inside the chamber and the community had already captured him on suspicion that he was there to vandalise and steal equipment, but let him off the hook. He confessed [to the technicians] that he switched on the breakers and could not produce any job card requiring him to be there nor could he explain his actions,” Mashava said.

ALSO READ: City Power pleads with communities to protect infrastructure

Arrest

“City Power head of security services Sergeant Thela set into motion a plan to have him apprehended. Within 24 hours, the suspect was tracked and informed to submit himself at the head office in Reuven for questioning. On arrival, he was immediately arrested with the assistance of JMPD Tactical Team and placed into lawful custody.

The suspect was taken to Roodepoort SAPS and is expected to appear in court today, facing charges relating to tampering with essential infrastructure, vandalism, acts of sabotage, according to Mashava.

She said the suspect is also facing a possible attempted murder charge for putting the lives of the technicians in danger.

“It is not clear if he was working with other people. We have been experiencing a blatant attack on our infrastructure across the city with the Roodepoort area the hardest hit. Some of the vandalism on the infrastructure cannot be explained as often nothing is taken,” she said.

Increase in vandalism

Mashava added there has been an increase in vandalism of electricity infrastructure in the city of Johannesburg.

“In the last month, there has been at least 100 incidents, a minimum of three incidents a day around Roodepoort, where mini electricity substations were vandalised, cables and fuses stolen, which led to the recent widespread outages in and around various areas of Roodepoort.”

“Meanwhile, City Power has commended the work of the security cluster following the successful prosecution and sentencing to 15 years imprisonment of a suspect who was arrested in March near Joburg Fruit Market in the City Deep.

“He was found with a quarter of a million rand worth of copper cables.  We believe this sentence will serve as a deterrent to other would-be cable thieves across the city,” said Mashava.

ALSO READ: City Power to reduce load shedding hours for Joburg