Pretoria – City of Joburg’s electricity supplier, City Power, said it is worried about the theft of network fuses across the city that contributed to most outages in areas including Roodepoort, last week.
“While this theft happens across the City of Joburg, as many as 267 fuses were stolen around Roodepoort alone since the beginning of last week, with the latest happening (on Saturday) morning. Most of the theft happens around Florida and in Roodepoort CBD,” said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena.
He said the “worrying criminal phenomenon comes closer to cable theft”, which has been on the increase over the past years.
“The theft of fuses not only leads to constant outages that inconvenience residents, but it is also costing City Power millions or rand. We appeal to residents to be vigilant and assist us by reporting any suspicious activity around the electricity infrastructure,” said Mangena.
“It is still not clear what the stolen fuses are used for, but we are engaging the police and the Joburg metro police department to assist us to curb this theft by arresting the perpetrators and ensuring that the punishment fits the crime. A crime that we view as economic sabotaged against the state.”
He added that City Power is also doing everything in its power to increase security patrols in the hotspots, and working with community policing forums and neighbourhood watch security to ensure that the runaway crime is curbed.
“We apologise to those customers affected by this,” said Mangena.
“We are currently working to replace about 12 stolen fuses which affected power supply in the Roodepoort area.”
Earlier this month, two armed security officers contracted to City Power were shot and killed while patrolling some of the cable theft hotspots around Newtown. The guards were ambushed and killed in a hail of bullets.
At the time, Mangena said security officers had just completed a task of escorting a truck transporting tons of burnt copper cables from inner-city underground tunnels to the utility’s salvage yard at its head office in Booysens.
“The officers stopped in Carr Street near the double-decker highway to inspect a kiosk often burgled and used to gain entry into the tunnels. Upon completing the inspection, the officers returned to their vehicle to write a brief security status report.
“Armed suspects suddenly appeared on both the driver and passenger sides and shot both of them. They then pulled their lifeless bodies out of the vehicle, and took one firearm from the crew before fleeing,” he said.
Police were called to the scene and murder cases have been opened.
Mangena said police found more than 10 spent cartridges at the crime scene.
IOL