City of Johannesburg energy utility City Power says it will not be able to win the war against cable theft and vandalism on its own.
This comes after Johannesburg was hit by thousands of power outages last weekend largely caused by cable theft and flooding that forced the entity to recall employees on leave and deploy additional technicians.
Cable theft has also left dozens of Johannesburg suburbs and industrial areas without street lights as they are targeted for copper or aluminium, while cables are targeted to be used for illegal connections.
“By ourselves, we are not winning the battle [against cable theft and vandalism], but we've signed a memorandum of understanding with Gauteng public safety because you can only win this war with the security cluster,” City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava told TimesLIVE Premium.
Mashava and her executive team described challenges faced by the entity and some of the interventions and plans they were rolling out.
“We are technicians, not soldiers, so the good thing is they [Gauteng public safety] are coming on-board and will be supporting our own security, which means we will have more eyes and more boots on the ground,” Mashava told reporters.
She said they were facing a battle in underground tunnels when they confront armed cable thieves.
“It's very bad because we've had some of our people shot and killed. They [criminals] come prepared to die, that's how bad it is. Our security responds [to incidents] ... so that's why you need the security cluster,” Mashava said.
Bea Swanepoel, CEO of Jozi My Jozi, a nonprofit organisation founded a year and half ago to address urban decay in the Johannesburg CBD, said with the lack of sufficient safety and security measures in the city, criminals were stealing cables and doing as they pleased.
“The solution from Jozi My Jozi to install solar street lights makes this a more sustainable solution,” Swanepoel said.
We have declared the tunnels a war zone ... the picture will begin to turn, and the picture cannot turn if it's just Joburg dealing with the infrastructure [theft] because we are not designed to defend but to respond
— Tshifularo Mashava, City Power CEO
Swanepoel said they have a combined projects team with Cogta Gauteng to ensure that the installations get “synchronised and planned properly”.
Most cable theft and vandalism happen during load-shedding and power outages, according to City Power.
Mashava said the collaborations with the province will soon yield positive results as security personnel will add capacity in preventing cable theft.
“We have declared the tunnels a war zone ... the picture will begin to turn, and the picture cannot turn if it's just Joburg dealing with the infrastructure [theft] because we are not designed to defend but to respond,” she said.
She said City Power did not have adequate numbers and the necessary security skills and training to sufficiently prevent cable theft.
“By ourself, [the situation] is bleak, but with the support of the security cluster, this is winnable,” Mashava said.
She said in communities where street lights get chopped and harvested for cables and aluminium, it did not make financial sense to install solar street lights as they would be harvested as well.
“We are doing the high mast, the big ones, because they are thicker in diameter, the structure is more robust and the foundation is deeper,” Mashava said.
She said the city has about 200,000 street lights, and overhauling all required funding they did not currently have.
“The question is where do we start, but for now though for the CBD we have a partnership with the province, so they are able to also fund us because we don't have enough money as our budget does not cover theft and vandalism,” she said.
Mashava said there is a strong focus on fixing the inner city. “If you go to the M1 and M2 [freeways] you'll see that they [street lights] were off, and now they are on.”
City Power's group executive for operations Charles Tlouane said even though they have welded manhole covers to ensure there is no easy access to their underground tunnels, cables thieves “are swimming in the poo” to get to the underground infrastructure .
“The criminals don't mind to go through a poo pipe just to harvest cables. They don't mind to go through poo as they go to grab cables,” Tlouane said.
He said it’s “war underground” as the cable thieves were armed and did not hesitate to use their guns.
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