Richie’s Motor Spares, a well-known company in Roodepoort, has had no electricity for over three years due to a stolen cable which were reported repeatedly.
Cable theft has become such a norm that residents have no choice but to live with this pandemic. Ben Horak, the owner of Richie’s Motor Spares, says he has spent over three years complaining about the same issue to City Power (CP) and was left hopeless.
Horak says a cable was stolen from the substation that supplies the surrounding businesses, including his, in the area in 2021. “After the cable was stolen, we struggled for a year before CP replaced the cable. Their excuse was that there was no cables in stock. We logged complaints to CP, and contractors would visit the site and assure me it will be fixed. Since then , we are still waiting. We would log complaints daily, but the same thing would happen, contractors would state that the job is complete, but we still have no electricity to this day,” he says.
Horak told the Record that CP would sent auditors to his business to come read the meter box and came to the conclusion that they are tampering with the meter box. “We pay for a three-phase cable when we only use a single-phase, which CP installed. It puts financial strain on the business. A week after installation of the single phase, a week later the substation was vandalised again”.
The business bought a generator and installed solar panels, which are charged daily to keep the business running. “Covid-19 had a lot of setbacks for many businesses, two of them next to us closed down. With no electricity they were not able to get back on their feet to reopen. We are currently the only business running on our own electricity,” Horak adds.
The Record spoke to the communications officer for CP, Zaheera Walker, and presented the reference numbers logged for the past three years. “It was confirmed as a stolen cable from Matholesville. They sent a CP resource out on site to investigate and concluded that the transformer in the substation has been vandalised and needs to be replaced,” says Walker.
According to Horak CP appointed a contractor and all cables were replaced but the electricity was not yet on. “I was not informed on when the power will be back on. I have tried to log a fault with CP and there was no luck,” Horak concluded.
