During the last week of January residents in Athlone and the surrounding areas had to endure a double whammy of blackouts, when electrical connectors were stolen twice from electricity boxes.
The City of Cape Town’s electricity department was swift in restoring power and replacing the connectors, but the need to make the vulnerable electricity boxes and all electricity generating apparatus vandal-proof is imperative.
According to Beverley van Reenen, a Mayco member for energy, there has been an increase in vandalism and illegal connections across the metro since 2020.
“Hanover Park, Heideveld, Athlone, Manenberg, Atlantis, Woodstock and Mitchell’s Plain are some of the hotspot areas in the city. Unfortunately, this often results in equipment damage and almost constant electricity outages in some areas, both in the City of Cape Town and Eskom-supplied areas,” she says.
Van Reenen also says illegal connections and damage to electricity infrastructure remain a challenge in the metro, as it often results in constant electricity outages for long periods in some areas.
“We simply cannot allow this criminality to continue. Constant repairs of the same vandalised infrastructure (are) not feasible and place significant pressure on City resources and available stock to replace. This negatively impacts our residents, who experience outages and insufficient street lighting.
“Ongoing infrastructure vandalism and illegal connections remain a challenge across the city, with a steady increase as loadshedding intensifies.
“The City has attended to hundreds of faults in recent months and disconnects illegal connections to City infrastructure across the metro on a regular basis. We encourage community members to assist us in ending this scourge,” Van Reenen says.
The City urges members of the public to report illegal activities to the police or the City’s 107 emergency number. The police are the leading authority in crime prevention.
Re-occurring incidents continue to take place in hotspot areas.
Between July and September last year, the City recorded 122 incidents of electricity vandalism and illegal connections in the metro.
The City has since embarked on enhanced initiatives, including earmarking approximately R40 million to help curb and prevent vandalising of critical energy infrastructure in communities. This is part of the approved 2022-’23 budget, which came into effect on Friday 1 July last year. In the 2021-’22 financial year, more than R50 million was spent on repairing and replacing damaged electricity infrastructure in areas across the metro.
There are also outages resulting from secondary tripping.
This happens when the electricity comes back on after loadshedding. Due to all load coming on at the same time in a particular pocket, the power often trips and shuts off again (cold load pick-up).
Hence one would experience this as power coming on, and a few minutes later, it is off. To help reduce the occurrence of this, residents are advised to switch off electrical appliances ahead of loadshedding to prevent all the electrical load from coming back at the same time and causing a surge of secondary outages.
Report damage to municipal electrical infrastructure:
- SMS: 31220
- Email: power@capetown.gov.za
Anonymous tip-offs are welcomed and residents can give anonymous tip-offs if they are aware of illegal activity that is taking place, that has happened or is still to happen.
Call 112 from a cellphone (toll-free) and 107 from a landline or 021 480 7700 for emergencies.
Mark Kleinschmidt, Ward 60 councillor, also weighed in on the alarming escalation of cable theft and electricity components in the City, Lansdowne and Sybrand Park.
“I believe there are syndicates who target the electricity components and carry on a lucrative illicit trade in these parts. We were shown by the Mayor of Saldana Bay, Andre Truter, an illustration of smart poles, a European innovation whereby street lights are powered by renewable wind energy sources, as well as relaying media messages to authorities. This is an innovation that Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis will strongly consider for the City. When vandalism and theft by criminals are a challenge, we need to be smarter”.
Truter’s mantra states: “Like a seasoned boxer in the ring, it’s all in the swing!”
Please report all cases of vandalising and theft of electricity cables and components on the City’s Emergency no 021 480 7700 from a mobile phone or 107 from a land line.
