After a short respite, threats against the City of Cape Town’s Electricity Services Department contract staff who are working in Gugulethu and Nyanga have resumed, the City of Cape Town said in a statement.
"The City of Cape Town is disappointed to report that City contractors working on electricity infrastructure in the Gugulethu area are once again being threatened and prevented from working by local contractors.
"The local contractors are demanding that all City contract work in the area be allocated to the local contractors exclusively.
"The City condemns these actions in the strongest possible terms.
"Although the City has placed much focus on local labour components in all of its contracts and supply-chain management processes, demands that tenders be given exclusively to only one grouping of contractors cannot be accepted.
"Preventing contractors from carrying out work in these areas is affecting response times, and could also potentially result in more than 10 000 customers going without electricity in the event of a major outage.
"The City regrets any inconvenience caused to residents in the area who are waiting for service requests to be resolved, and is doing everything in its power to resolve this matter."