City Power. (Foto: Google)
Workers and contractors of the Johannesburg power supplier City Power were arrested this week after they allegedly stole and damaged cables and other power-related equipment.
A total of six people were arrested in various parts of the city. Two of the suspects are contracted by City Power and another suspect is currently employed by the power supplier.
Isaac Mangena, spokesperson for City Power, says the first incident took place in Hillbrow on Thursday evening.
“City Power’s security risk management team received an anonymous tip that five suspects tried to steal a transformer,” he says.
“The suspects were caught in the act, arrested and taken to Hillbrow police station.”
It later came to light that two of the suspects are respectively a contractor of City Power and the other is employed by the power supplier.
The police seized two lorries and a bakkie with City Power’s logo on it.
Another City Power contractor was caught on CCTV on Friday removing 20 m of copper cable in Hambergweg in Witpoortjie and replacing it with ABC cables. He was arrested and is currently being held at Honeydew Police Station.
The Roodepoort service delivery center’s transformer in Matholesville has also been stolen in the meantime, but no one has yet been arrested in connection with this.
“It is not clear whether any of the current suspects can be connected to this theft, but the police are investigating the matter further.”
Mangena appealed to the public to contact their nearest police station if they come across cases where infrastructure is stolen or damaged.
City loses billions of rand annually
The Johannesburg city centre. (Photo: Tebogo Iosaba/Unsplash)
According to Mangena, power cables and other infrastructure worth about R4 billion are stolen annually.
“This type of theft and vandalism slows down City Power’s operations and response times to service delivery issues,” he says.
“It is clear that Johannesburg has a problem when it comes to cable and other power infrastructure theft and City Power was aware that some of its contractors and employees could be involved in this.”
Since Monday, 26 cases of cable theft and vandalism have been recorded in Johannesbrug. Eight suspects were also arrested for some of these crimes.
“It is extremely disappointing for us that the people entrusted with keeping the lights on are instead contributing to the problem.”
The City Power employee who was recently arrested will soon also face an internal disciplinary hearing.
The contractors will be fired and their contracts with City Power will be terminated.
