Electricity infrastructure crimes hinder progress
City Power urges residents to join the community partnership programme to fight this scourge.
City Power calls on local communities and businesses to participate in its community partnership programme on electricity network infrastructure security.
Doing so will help to protect critical infrastructure, minimise power outages, and increase revenue generation.
Infrastructure crimes such as cable theft, vandalism, and electricity theft in the form of meter tampering and illegal connections have a continuous impact on City Power’s business operations, resulting in significant revenue loss and a negative effect on service delivery to the residents of Johannesburg.
Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said since the start of the fiscal year, the entity has recorded about 1 300 incidents of cable theft and vandalism, with arrests approaching 200. The entity recorded 2 175 incidents of cable theft and vandalism in the 2021/2022 fiscal year.
Through the community partnership programme, which seeks to build long-term partnerships with communities and the business fraternity through the sharing of information (comments and inputs), City Power pledges to:
• Establish sustainable partnerships with community-based structures (CBS) to protect municipal electricity infrastructure from crimes such as theft, damage, tampering, or illegal connections.
• Maintain stable and open communication on security risk factors and vulnerabilities affecting City Power’s electricity infrastructure.
• Deepen community partnerships in fighting infrastructure crimes.
Details of the programme are available on City Power’s website.
Parties interested in adopting and protecting the city’s electricity infrastructure should fill out the application form (Annexure A), indicating the type of network infrastructure, its physical location, the security measures to be installed, and other pertinent information.
Submit a separate list as an addendum to the application if you have more than one electrical installation.
Applications can be sent to thela@citypower.co.za, the general manager of security management.
