City Power has reported an increase in incidents of vandalism of mini-substations, transformer substations, streetlights, and theft of cables, fuses, mini-substation doors, copper bits in and around Roodeport.
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According to the energy supplier, this has been occurring nearly every week. It stated with just the last three weeks, over 19 cases were reported.
“Two weeks ago we had about eight mini substations vandalised, 92 circuit breakers stolen, three chambers vandalised with nothing stolen, countless number of cables stolen with three happening last night, and 82 fuses stolen, and 18 pillar boxes vandalised,” said Isaac Mangena, City Power Spokesperson.
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Between the first weekend of October and Tuesday 4, they had a recorded figure of 11 incidents of vandalism.
“With these vandalisms occurring on a weekly basis, it badly affects electricity supply to the residents who have to endure hours of outages, over and above load-shedding.
“More particularly it affects our operating and material budgets at the depot that get depleted, and it is putting too much pressure on our overtime bill,” Mangena explained
The utility added that they were currently looking at alternative ways of protect its infrastructure to address the risks.
It called on the police and other law enforcement agencies to do more to help curb the increase in the rate of vandalism and theft of electricity in the area.
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“We are engaging the SAPS and JMPD to assist us in this regards as we believe some of the acts border on serious crimes of sabotage, and crimes against the state.
We are also planning collaborative efforts with private security, neighbourhood watch, and CPF to assist City Power in safeguarding electricity infrastructure.
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