Johannesburg - City of Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba on Sunday called on members of the public to help identify criminals responsible for an armed robbery at City Power's substation in Mulbarton, south of Johannesburg.
"Yesterday [Saturday], six armed men stormed the substation at around midnight and held up the security officers on duty and a staff member, tied them [up] with cable ties, before stealing valuable equipment from the site," he said in a statement.
Mulbarton substation was undergoing a major upgrade and was currently under a contractor and guarded by the contractor. The six robbers arrived in a truck and overpowered the two security guards on duty.
They proceeded to break into the on-site storage and loaded a 500 metre drum of cable, and 5 x 75m copper cables. While the robbers were busy, a City Power electrician working on an outage in Glenvista arrived at the substation trying to trace the outage fault. He was also held and tied up.
The three were also robbed of three cellphones. The electrician was also robbed of his R3500 work toolbox. Police were called and a case of armed robbery had been opened at Mondeor Police station.
"We cannot allow criminals to threaten the delivery of services in our city. I encourage anyone with information about this crime to visit the Mondeor police or City Power Risk Control on 011-490-7900," Mashaba said.