A Tshwane electrician was robbed at gunpoint while performing his duties on Monday evening.
The man had been attending to faulty cables that had caused an outage in Olievenhoutbosch when he was robbed by two men wielding firearms.
MMC for utility services Abel Tau said the robbers took the electrician’s wallet, driver’s licence and bank cards.
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“While we are grateful his life could be spared, we condemn the heartless and life-threatening crime on a metro employee,” said Tau on Wednesday.
“This is a public servant who sacrificed his precious time in order to see to it that residents were reconnected to the grid.”
Earlier this month an apparent hostage incident took place at the Centurion golf estate, Tau said.
“Electricity department staff were forced to do an illegal reconnection while held hostage by the customer together with his associate,” he said.
“Such incidents have dire consequences because they hinder service delivery to residents. The metro is banking on the communities that are in need of services to protect the electricians and artisans who are on call for infrastructure maintenance.”
Tau appealed to residents to cease intimidating, assaulting and threatening metro officials.
“If some sections of the community persist with this thuggish behaviour, they’ll make it difficult for our officials to respond to service delivery interruptions.”
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