Two bodies of suspected cable thieves discovered after reported outages

The bodies of suspected cable thieves were discovered in Pimville Zone 9, Soweto, and in Randburg after a reported power outage.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the outages affecting Randburg and Pimville were caused by cable theft and vandalism.

One body was found electrocuted on Monday in a trench in Soweto.

On the same day following the outage in Randburg affecting Kensington B and parts of Ferndale, the team found a body at midnight inside the Bond substation transformer.

Mangena said the police were dispatched on-site at 3am and the forensic pathology team.

“Once all the work was complete and the body was taken, the team attempted to restore the power supply, but there were multiple faults on the circuit,” he said.

He said in Soweto two cables at the substation had been cut and one had been vandalised, causing an outage in Pimville.

“It is suspected that the vandalised cable was still live when the suspect attempted to cut it and was electrocuted,” said Mangena.

He said the entity was concerned about the frequent incidents of cable theft and vandalism, especially in Randburg, Roodepoort, the inner city and Lenasia. 

He added that City Power was not ruling out the possibility of a cable theft syndicate, which could be well-organised and use sophisticated tools and equipment to target high-value cables and network infrastructure.

He said incidents of vandalism and theft had worsened over the past few weeks.

“Since July 1, City Power recorded 114 incidents of cable theft and vandalism and 15 suspects arrested through our collaboration with community members, law enforcement agencies and the City Power Security Risk Management Team,” he said. 

During the financial year 2022/23, City Power recorded 2,347 incidents of cable theft and vandalism. At the same time, 278 arrests were made.

“The discovery of these bodies has also affected the mental health of our workforce who are already under pressure from the high electricity demand which in some cases has led to frequent trips caused mainly by overload or illegal connections,” he said.

He appealed to residential customers to be aware of their surroundings and report cable theft and vandalism or any suspicious activity around electrical infrastructures on 0800-116-166, send a WhatsApp to 083-579-4497 or call the police on 10111.

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