Joburg City Power contractors arrested over cable theft
Two City Power contractors tasked with repairing incidents of cable theft in the south of Johannesburg have been arrested for allegedly stealing electricity cables.
This is as residents in Naturena and surrounding areas have been without electricity for prolonged periods this week.
The power utility said these outages were a result of multiple cable thefts, mainly in the Eikenhof area.
City Power’s Isaac Mangena said they caught the thieves on Friday night. They were in possession of a 10-metre long cable.
“Information was received that during their work, the two contractor employees cut and stole copper cable from the trench, thus extended the length of the cable stolen earlier by criminals.”
City Power said further investigations revealed that more cable had been stolen and sold by the time the arrest was made.
City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava commended the apprehension of the suspects, saying the additional security measures they have put in place have begun to bear fruits.
“While we are pleased with the arrests, we find it deeply concerning that part of the contractors are seemingly part of a syndicate involved with cable theft. We have never ruled out the involvement of internal people in some of the theft,” she said in a statement.
The suspects face charges related to tampering and theft of essential infrastructure.
#JoburgUpdates #JoburgServices #FightCableTheft
City Power CEO Ms Tshifularo Mashava has commended the work of City Power security
personnel and the swift response by the law enforcement officials for making the arrests.Find the full statement & visuals below.^BM pic.twitter.com/buvrMUPPRj
— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) February 18, 2023
-EWN
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