City Power warns against connecting to grid illegally
Tshifularo Mashava said they condemn this practice with the strongest possible terms, and they urge tenants and owners to hold their body corporates accountable for this.
City Power sent a stern warning to its contractors who engage in criminal activities, including reconnecting defaulting disconnected customers.
This follows after two contractors were arrested for illegally reconnecting a customer following a cut-off operation in an affluent area on August 16. The contractors were apprehended by the Security Risk Management Team and private security following a tip-off regarding suspicious activity in Sundowner.
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They were caught red-handed reconnecting a customer’s power supply, which the revenue protection team had disconnected earlier in the afternoon during a cut-off operation.
They were found in possession of tools including a bolt cutter, 4m of wire, and a few circuit breakers. They were subsequently handed over to the Honeydew Police Station for processing and charged with tampering with essential infrastructure.
City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava welcomed the arrest of the two suspects and praised the entity’s ongoing community partnership programme on electricity network infrastructure security to protect critical infrastructure.
“We welcome the arrest of the two suspects following a tip-off from a community member. We are grateful that community members are taking charge and reporting suspicious activities around our infrastructure. This is a testament that our community partnership programme to protect essential infrastructure is working.”
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She added that this arrest is a significant step forward in the fight against illegal reconnections and to root out corrupt contractors. “Their actions undermine our efforts to curb illegal connections and collect revenue, and it compromises the integrity of our network. We will continue to collaborate with law enforcement to apprehend those involved in this criminal activity.”
The revenue protection team, together with law enforcement officials, led the cut-off operation through the Randburg Service Delivery Centre (SDC) supply areas as part of the enhanced revenue collection drive.
They successfully disconnected eight defaulting residential complexes and one business customer who collectively owe a staggering R22.956m in unpaid electricity bills.
Additionally, the team disconnected one property which was not on the list but was an illegal connection tip-off. Another defaulting residential complex in Windsor East, owing over R8.4m, had also illegally connected to the grid, as a result, the technical team removed the infrastructure including the power supply cable.
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“We have resumed our weekly revenue collection drives across the city, and we targeted several affluent areas in Sundowner, Bryanston, North Riding, Windsor, and Randpark Ridge. The operation was part of our broader strategy to recover the grand amount owed to the Randburg SDC which is currently sitting at R550m.”
She added, however, that City Power had recorded R9b in customer debt across all SDCs. “We will continue to disconnect defaulting customers for non-payment to send a strong message to customers with outstanding balances to settle their debts or face disconnection.”
The entity urges customers to visit the centre to make arrangements to pay their outstanding bills to avoid facing a disconnection, which comes with additional penalties.
They further warn individuals that illegally connecting themselves to the electricity network is tampering with essential infrastructure, a crime that carries a maximum of 15 years jail time without an option of a fine.
