City Power targets informal settlements after Randburg businesses complain of power outages
As part of City Power’s aggressive response to curb the scourge of illegal connections across Johannesburg, the utility embarked on a cut-off operation by disconnecting illegal connections at Kya Sands, Randburg, on Friday.
The operation was led by MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Service, Jack Sekwaila, alongside the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD).
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the operation was initiated following complaints from businesses saying that a nearby informal settlement was connecting illegally to the electricity grid, which resulted in constant power outages in the area due to overloading.
“We received complaints from the business community who are operating several factories in the area and claimed that people are illegally connecting to our electricity grid.
“The entity and, by extension, the City of Johannesburg lose millions worth of revenue in these industrial areas due to the rampant illegal connections,” said Sekwaila.
Sekwaila added that they have tasked the City Power Security Risk Management team to onboard an intelligence team and increase resources in order to arrest the kingpins operating in electricity theft, and develop a follow-up operations plan to regularly inspect and crack down on illegal connections.
“We hope that now that we have removed the illegal connections causing unplanned outages, the volume of unplanned outages will be minimal in all affected areas,” said Sekwaila.
Mangena added that even though no arrests were made, businesses in the area welcomed the swift action in addressing the issue, which caused constant power outages and negatively impacted daily operations.
“There has been a proliferation of illegal connections across the City of Johannesburg, which adds strain to City Power’s network and infrastructure.
“We strongly emphasize that illegal connections are unsafe. When people illegally connect to the grid, they are putting their lives and others at risk, especially children.
“These illegal connections are resulting in a lot of cases where the network is malfunctioning, the trips increasing, cables burn, lower or higher than the normal voltage on the network and in other instances have caused fires in private homes of residents,” said Mangena.
-IOL
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