The meeting also followed a series of major cable theft incidents throughout Gauteng Province. Speaker after speaker at the Friday meeting wanted to know why ELM and the Police were unable to combat cable theft syndicates responsible for continuous power outages which again surged this month.

Radebe called the meeting after ELM uncovered a syndicate – leading to the arrest of two security guards last week – allegedly responsible for a series of burnings of municipal electrical sub-stations in Emfuleni.

Accompanied by Public Safety MMC (Member of ELM Mayoral Committee) Elias Mokoena, Radebe said he valued the inputs from a broad range of stakeholders represented at the Friday meeting.

MMC Mokoena also spoke and invited honest inputs from the meeting. Cable theft and infrastructure sabotage has emerged a a major issue in power blackouts in Emfuleni after repeated warnings by business organisations that the situation was spinning out of control with syndicates acting with impunity and with help from within ELM.

The same was happening on infrastructure related to the Vaal River pollution clean-up project run by Rand Water and throughout Gauteng Province.
Councillors from several political parties also voiced their extreme concern at the present situation in Emfuleni, despite ELM spending up to R12 million per month on security.

Reacting to the crisis, the Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) said the present dire situation was entirely predictable and preventable and boiled down to the lack of an intelligence-driven security strategy by ELM and its stakeholders.

“The decisive factor is impartial intelligence and not yet another sitting duck security company getting paid millions for a few unarmed guards,” said Klippies Kritzinger, President of the GTCoC.

Friday’s meeting was also attended by Vereeniging Business Cooperation (VBC) MD Kevin Jackson and Kobus Janse van Rensburg, Chairperson of Erpa (Emfuleni Ratepayers Association).