Johannesburg City Power has sent a stinging warning to Joburg residents, saying it will no longer foot the bill for replacing service cables that run from the pole box to the house after it incurred a massive R188 million bill for replacing service cables in the past financial year.
City Power said it had to cut down on the massive cost it was incurring costs to focus resources on its core business, supplying electricity to Joburg homes and businesses.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said it was the homeowners responsibility to ensure service cables were not stolen and said Section 21 of the NRS Standard by-laws, said the property owner was responsible for applying for the installation of a service connection.
“This reminder is necessary as we find ourselves increasingly under pressure to replace stolen service cables free of charge despite pleading with communities to guard their cables and other infrastructure against theft and vandalism.
“City Power is also taking this step in order to cut down on costs and focus resources on our core business.
“Last year alone, the entity spent R188 million on service cables alone.
“This money could be spent on essential equipment and infrastructure such as mini substations, which cost in the region of R700 000 each,” said Mangena.
He said the millions spent on replacing service cables highlighted the cable theft issue.
“The problem is further highlighted by our cut-off raids of illegal connections in most informal settlements where hundreds of tonnes of services cables are retrieved.
“For example, in a recent raid conducted in Motsoaledi Informal Settlement we confiscated 50,000kg of service cables which are often stolen from paying customers and aluminium bundle cables which are often stolen from street poles- both are used for illegal connections,” said Mangena.
Mangena said service cables, transformers, joints and mini substations were also stolen in numbers.
City Power has also been under immense pressure in recent weeks, with thousands of complaints due to faults, outages and rampant trips after load shedding.
The known hotspots for service cable theft were Alexandra, Fleurhof, Tshelisong, Princess, Lenasia, Eldorado Park, Pennyville, Matholeville and Vlakfontein.
“City Power is finding it difficult to keep up with demand not only for service cables but also for other infrastructure,
“While City Power does its best to invest in private security and work together with law enforcement agencies, we believe that the solution lies with communities making a commitment to safeguarding infrastructure, especially within their private properties, using resources such as patrollers, CPFs, neighbourhood watch, and working with local SAPS.
“We call on the communities to organise themselves and work with us to combat the destruction of infrastructure,” said Mangena.
IOL