City Power records 1,300 cable theft and vandalism cases since start of financial year

Thirteen suspects were arrested over the weekend after 16 incidents of cable theft and vandalism which plunged several parts of Johannesburg into darkness.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said most of the theft involves underground copper cables. However, mini-substations and pillar boxes are also being vandalised.

“Communities are also adversely affected, for example, four substations — Nancefield, Eldorado, Nirvana and Soweto — in the south of Johannesburg lost power, affecting many areas,” said Mangena.

“Suspects have been arrested in that area following the outages thanks to community participation and the SAPS essential infrastructure task team. Some of the suspects are appearing in court today. We expect the rest to follow suit this week.

“While City Power is doing everything possible to restore power, the issue of cable theft remains one of the biggest problems hampering our efforts to provide services.

“We have so far recorded about 1,300 incidents of cable theft and vandalism since the beginning of the financial year, with arrests approaching 200.

“In 2021/22 we recorded 2,175 incidents of cable theft and vandalism.”

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