Tshwane metro electricians were held hostage on Tuesday evening by angry Mamelodi residents demanding power be restored to their area. The group forced the officials to disconnect another suburb, which they believed was adding to their problems.

The problems started when a 132kV trip happened at the Mamelodi 2 substation after load-shedding due to overload on the grid, according to metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba.

“The team on site were attending to the outage when some residents serviced by the Mamelodi Hinterland substation held them hostage and forced them to disconnect the power to Nellmapius extensions 22 and 24,” Bokaba says.

“The officials had no choice but to comply out of fear for their own safety.”

The metro has condemned the incident, saying it will withdraw all its teams from sites in Mamelodi ‘for safety reasons’.

“This growing phenomenon of harassment and robbery of officials while on duty has been experienced in Nellmapius, some parts of Soshanguve and now some sections of Mamelodi,” says Bokaba.

“The situation remains tense. Traumatised officials are reluctant to go out and attend to service interruptions in extensions 6 and 10 because they are afraid they will be kidnapped or harmed.

“A meeting has been scheduled this morning between metro officials and councillors in the affected areas to find a way for the officials to resume duties without any fear, threats or intimidation.”

Bokaba says water and electricity interruptions occur from time to time because of several reasons including cable theft, vandalism and illegal connections.

“Daily load-shedding by Eskom has made the problem worse as the fragile electricity infrastructure was not designed to be switched on and off frequently.”