Pretoria - City of Joburg’s power utility, City Power has welcomed the arrest of one of its contractors on charges including sabotage and tampering with essential electricity infrastructure.
City Power’s CEO, Tshifularo Mashava said the contractor almost caused catastrophe on unsuspecting City Power technicians, after he allegedly turned on a substation in Roodepoort, where officials had earlier switched off, for them to work safely.
“The suspect was found inside City Power switching substation in the Roodepoort area with working equipment. It is not clear how he gained entry but his actions nearly killed some of City Power’s operators and technicians who were working on the network downstream from the same switching station,” said Mashava.
“While City Power operators were working on the repairs in the Roodepoort area, they isolated the switching substation for safety purposes. By sheer luck they tested the cables and other infrastructure again before starting their work, only to find that the cables were still live.
“They went back to the transmission station to check how the cable they isolated earlier is suddenly live. They found the suspect inside the chamber and the community had already captured him on suspicion that he was there to vandalise and steal the equipment,” she said.
Mashava said the cornered contractor confessed that he had switched on the power.
“He confessed that he switched on the breakers and could not produce any job card requiring him to be there nor could he explain his actions.
“The community had initially let the suspect off the hook, and City Power general manager for security services, Sergeant Thela set into motion a plan to have him apprehended. Within 24 hours the suspect was tracked and informed to submit himself to head office, Reuven for questioning. On arrival, the suspect was immediately arrested with the assistance of the Johannesburg Metro Police Department’s tactical team and placed into lawful custody,” she said.
The contractor was taken to Roodepoort SAPS and is today expected to appear in court, facing charges relating to tampering with essential infrastructure, vandalism, acts of sabotage.
City Power said the contractor is also facing a possible attempted murder charge for putting the lives of the technicians in danger.
“We have been experiencing a blatant attack on our infrastructure across the city, with Roodepoort area the hardest hit. Some of the vandalism on the infrastructure cannot be explained, as often nothing is taken.
“Most (of the attacks on electricity infrastructure) are really bordering on sabotage and we have increased surveillance in collaboration with the SAPS, and other security apparatus to ensure we root out the criminals.
“We have never ruled out the involvement of contractors and some of our staff in some of these actions and we are starting to see with those arrested recently, with more expected to be arrested soon,” said Mashava.
Police are following up on some leads, and Mashava said City Power is confident more arrests will be made.
In the last month, there were at least 100 incidents, a minimum of three incidents per day, around Roodepoort where mini substations were vandalised, and cables or fuses were stolen.
City Power said these attacks have resulted in the recent widespread outages in and around several areas in Roodepoort.
“The Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre has replaced at least seven mini substations in the last two weeks in Roodepoort areas such as Wilropark, Allen’s Nek, Groblerpark, Ruimsig and Fleurhof, among others,” said Mashava.
Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a number of measures aimed at reducing the endemic load shedding and adding more megawatts to the grid by the end of the year.
Ramaphosa said the immediate priority of government was to achieve energy security.
He denied that there could be a total blackout in the country as the grid was on the verge of collapse.
Independent Media earlier reported that Ramaphosa, who was delivering his budget vote in Parliament on Wednesday, said government will procure about 10 000MW of new generation capacity after more than 100 projects were implemented.
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