Theft, vandalism, load-shedding combine to strain City Power’s infrastructure

Load-shedding in Johannesburg is like manna from heaven for thieves — it allows them to know where to steal cables.

Given stage 6 load-shedding and City Power’s already overstrained technicians, customers need to brace for more power outages.

The MMC for environment and infrastructure services, Michael Sun, visited the Hursthill depot on Thursday morning to conduct an oversight visit with the entity’s technical teams.

Hursthill depot is responsible for 77 suburbs and includes 5,600 street lights on 73 main roads, including Barry Hertzog Avenue, Jan Smuts Avenue, Main Reef Road and Beyers Naudé Drive.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the depot in region B is crucial as it services several essential installations like the Crosby water reservoir and health facilities.

“Yesterday we had about 1,500 [complaint] calls and this morning we are sitting about 500 because of the efforts the technicians are putting in and the extra resources that we have put into Hursthill,” he said.

During the oversight visit, some of the technicians at one of the transformer substations on Clovelly Road and Hoylake Road in Greenside were replacing a cable.

This is after thieves stole the cable and a transformer at the mini-substation.

“As you can see, they have stolen the cable and even stole a transformer inside. Normally we run these chambers with two transformers, one on standby while the other one is running. Often you may not even know that one is gone,” said Mangena.

He said it is usually discovered only when there are problems with the system, such as overloading in a certain area.

One of the technicians’ team leaders, Phestus Moeketsi, said theft usually occurs when there is load-shedding because thieves know that when the power is out they can steal.

“There were two high-voltage cables feeding this area so they bridged the line and took one of the cables. Nobody lost power but soon the system gets overloaded,” he said. 

After replacing the cable and the transformer, the entity would upgrade the locking system to avert future theft.

MMC spokesperson Nickolaus Bauer said City Power was spending more than R100m a year on security.

“Without adequate support from the police on a national level, this is simply not going to be won. JMPD and City Power are already over-stretched with the resources that are being assigned to protect infrastructure,” he said.

Mangena said from the methods used to steal cable,  they couldn’t rule out if contractors or even internal staff were involved. He said people who stole the cable knew how to operate the electrical network.

“It is not a normal person, this person makes sure they bypass the lines so that when they do their dirt there are no outages. We started to pick it up only when there was overloading in the area,” he said.

He said the entity started to improve on the screening of contractors and has started to phase out some so that at least City Power technicians will be the main people working on the network instead of contractors.

“We are phasing out a lot of contractors and ensuring that we train internal staff to do some of the work.

We cannot get rid of all contractors, especially with the pressure and the amount of work that is needed, and considering that we are in stage 6 load-shedding,” said Mangena.

The entity will screen the contractors that it is hiring to ensure that they know who is working on the network. “We need to ensure that we empower and insource, and make sure that we hire technicians internally,” he said.

Mangena said the entity was working on the security technology that would activate armed response if someone was fiddling with the substation.

“We have security at City Power that patrols most of our installations but we cannot guard every substation. We have about 18,000 of these chambers, so imagine if we have to put a guard at each station, day and night. It is not sustainable,” he said.

About 7km from Greenside in Crosby suburb where technicians were busy replacing a transformer which blew up from being overloaded.  

The cause of the problem on that side, however, is different. Due to illegal connections from Slovo informal settlement, residents are often subjected to power cuts.

“To alleviate the pressure on the paying customers we had to put the transformer and the ring main unit [unit that connects high- voltage cables and links the substations] inside the suburb to prevent illegal connections,” said Mangena.

However, MMC Sun remains adamant that in the financial year starting on July 1, most of the challenges will be addressed. He asked residents to be patient as addressing the service and restoring electricity do take time.

“At City Power alone, we are going to dedicate R1.6bn for infrastructure investment. That means we are going to have the resources to replace some of the old infrastructure, fix what's broken and upgrade a lot of other infrastructure,” he said.