JOHANNESBURG SOUTH – City Power remains unfazed on its commitment to clamp down on illegal connections despite intimidation on Monday August 4.
City Power employees were intimidated and chased away by some members of the community in Lenasia in the South of Johannesburg, when they visited the area to disconnect illegal connections.
The visit to Lenasia was in response to a number of queries received to disconnect illegal connections, which were connected to the City Power network in Extension 9 and 10 areas.
“City Power wishes to condemn the intimidation of our employees who were doing their duties to disconnect illegal and dangerous connections to the grid. Lenasia has experienced debilitating power outages recently, which in part are a result of these connections. Our law abiding customers have been inconvenienced by a few rogue residents, who have complete disregard for the safety of others. These illegal connections pose extreme danger to the users, which puts the grid under undue pressure, resulting in outages due to overload and constitute a significant revenue loss to City Power and the City of Johannesburg,” said Louis Pieterse, City Power Spokesman.
He adds that illegal connections put community lives at risk as there is inadequate protection against the illegally connected live wires, resulting in a higher risk of fire and electrocution.
City Power and its shareholder, the City of Johannesburg, acknowledge that there are households who cannot afford to pay for electricity due to indigence or low income. The City of Johannesburg and City Power have formulated a social package called Siyasizana, which provides free basic electricity to registered users who are either unemployed or earn an income of less than R3 366 a month.
As part of the prevention measures against electricity theft and loss of revenue, City Power is in the process of installing prepaid meters in protective structures (vandal proof boxes) to avoid user interference and tampering. However, customers are still able to use the user interface gadget to load credit onto the meter.
City Power urges members of the community to report any incidents. Community members can report their anonymous tips-offs on illegal connections, cable theft and vandalism to 0800 002 587. Incidents of vandalism or cable theft can also be reported to 011 490 7911/7900/7553.
The theft of the electricity in the Johannesburg South area led to massive power outages in Lenasia, Eldorado Park, Klipspruit, Nancefield, Devland, Lawley, Freedom Park, Lehae and surrounding areas recently, and plunged these communities into darkness for a number of days as a result of infrastructure sabotage.
City Power works with other stakeholders such as the South African Police Services (SAPS), Johannesburg Metro Police (JMPD), Eskom and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) to address the challenge of theft and illegal connections and apprehend suspects where possible.
During the July 2013 to June 2014 financial year, City Power apprehended 229 suspects on theft of infrastructure with 86 per cent conviction rate.
