Several local communities across Cape Town are battling with the scourge of cable theft which often leaves households without power.
Cape Town - About four thousand Eskom customers around Khayelitsha, Macassar and Harare were left in the dark after vandals torched and destroyed essential power lines.
The households which fall under the national electricity service provider, were left without power for up to two days while Eskom technicians repaired the vandalised infrastructure.
Eskom spokesperson Kyle Cookson said: “About 4000 Eskom customers in Khayelitsha were without electricity supply for the greater part of Sunday and Monday due to a cable fault that caused an unplanned power interruption.
“Our operators were on site digging trenches today and will commence with repairs to the damaged infrastructure.”
Several local communities across Cape Town are battling with the scourge of cable theft which often leaves households without power.
Khayelitsha CPF secretary Phindile George said: “I was made aware yesterday that several households between Khayelitsha and Macassar were without electricity due to cable theft, which is one of the biggest challenges we have.
“There are young boys known to be destroying Eskom boxes to get to the cables which, they then sell to scrap yards. It’s a challenge because they usually orchestrate these activities at night when most people are not on the streets making it difficult for the residents to see and report them.
“However, we are still working with our residents, encouraging them to actively participate in looking after our community infrastructure, because this directly affects them,” said George.
Meanwhile, Eskom says it will no longer be making use of its SMS platform. Instead, the electricity service provider is encouraging its customers to make use of its new service delivery system Alfred the chatbot or its MyEskom Customer App.