“We do not have the funds to continue buying replacement units, as residents are not purchasing electricity.”

These were the words of City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena when addressing residents’ allegations of not fixing certain mini-substations in Mayibuye.

The residents and the power utility entity have been at loggerheads for months now. This stems from City Power demanding that residents buy electricity legally before they can do meter audits, normalisation, and fix damaged infrastructure.

Mangena said it is also important to highlight that they are depleting their material stock faster than they can restock.

“[This is] due to the strain caused by illegal connections and meter tampering, which results in ongoing infrastructure damage. Another issue is that we are servicing areas such as Mayibuye, where we repair and replace infrastructure but do not collect any revenue,” he added.

He said the area continues to face challenges related to widespread meter tampering and illegal connections, which are causing frequent outages, overloading, and damage to essential infrastructure, often resulting in equipment failure or even explosions.

“Additionally, the network in Mayibuye is abnormal and needs to be normalised. For us to restore
power in certain areas, we urgently need to remove illegal connections in other sections of the area. Before normalisation can take place, we can install a pillar box or a mini-substation today, but it may blow up the following day, forcing us to start from scratch and waste valuable resources,” concluded Mangena.