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Electricity and water supply: Emfuleni staggers under massive sabotage
The blaze at the Duncanville ELM electricity offices took place against the background of severe labour and political tensions within ELM and destroyed the offices so completely that it could only be regarded as “arson and an inside job”, informed sources told Sedibeng Ster.
VEREENIGING.- Arsonists and cable thieves inflicted massive damage to Emfuleni municipal infrastructure over the past week – first the electricity department offices in Vereeniging were razed to the ground in a massive night-time inferno, followed by huge cable theft over the weekend.
Executive Mayor Jacob Khawe said this week he regarded both incidents as “sabotage” and announced that security had been heightened at Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM). At the time of going to press, insurance evaluations were still being done but damages were so extensive from both incidents and were likely to run into millions of Rand.
The theft of a massive 88kv cable from Rand Water in Vereeniging also left large areas of Emfuleni without power from Sunday night and affected pumped water supply to a key reservoir supplying the region, according to Rand Water.
Residents were urged to take emergency measures like collecting water in buckets to prevent water shortages resulting from the affected reservoir not filling up.
The blaze at the Duncanville ELM electricity offices took place against the background of severe labour and political tensions within ELM and destroyed the offices so completely that it could only be regarded as “arson and an inside job”, informed sources told Sedibeng Ster.
“The fire was incredibly intense and evenly-spread and one can see from photographs that the damage is pretty much complete throughout all the buildings affected – therefore arson is definitely suspected,” said another source.
Cable theft has also been a major problem throughout Emfuleni and has already cost ELM millions of rand.
Although the latest massive cable theft was from Rand Water, experts told Sedibeng Ster that it was “high-time” ELM and other stakeholders developed and implemented a proper strategy on all aspects of cable theft.
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