Africa-Press – South-Africa. South Africa must deal with the economic sabotage that is keeping the country in the dark, writes City of Johannesburg mayoral committee member for environment and infrastructure,
Michael Sun.
Within just 72 hours last week in Johannesburg, two security guards were gunned down, another landed up in the intensive care unit with a headshot wound, and two more were held hostage by a gang wielding AK47s.
These were not soldiers or police, but all brave individuals who were merely trying to protect electrical infrastructure and services in the city. They were contracted to City Power to try and address the runaway robbery of cables and installations at our substations, which are being carted away by criminals on a daily basis.
They walk shoulder-to-shoulder with the city’s technicians every day to ensure that our residents have uninterrupted power. Their job should not be a life-threatening one as it has now become. Their families should not be mourning their deaths nor be worrying that their loved ones and breadwinners will return home after work.
From July 2021 to date, 1 456 cases of vandalism and cable theft have been reported to City Power, which cost the city R24 million in damages and repairs. This is not even factoring in the economic cost that rolling blackouts cause to businesses and homes.
‘Not normal’
This is not normal – and the moment we begin to realise how severe the situation is in the City of Gold and elsewhere in South Africa, we can begin to find a solution.
Johannesburg’s ability to provide reliable electricity to residents is being severely threatened – and, in spite of all the good work being done to upgrade our power network, there are forces working against us to keep the lights on.
Despite these challenges, we remain committed to our duty to serve the residents of this beautiful city and, as such, we will be proactive in mitigating these immediate risks. We will be beefing up security at hotspots and ensuring we have more personnel at all our substations. We will be installing CCTV and alarm systems to act as an early warning system.
But City Power is already spending R100 million annually on security measures and every cent spent protecting infrastructure means less money to keep the lights on. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that most of the City’s cable servitudes pass through open fields, making it vulnerable to theft.
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Without urgent and meaningful intervention by the country’s law enforcement agencies and prosecuting authority on this matter, it will simply continue. City Power, along with other local government entities responsible for power distribution around the country, are under-resourced, over-stretched and simply outgunned when it comes to security.
The AK47 gang that held up our security at City Power’s Cydna sub-station last week were not amateurs. Shutting down the site within a matter of minutes, making our security officers lay face down on the ground as their unmarked 4x4s ripped several hundred kilograms of copper cables from the ground. This is starting to show all the signs of criminal groups that are well resourced and organised. It is no longer just theft, but robbery on a grand scale.
Consider deploying SANDF
If we don’t have an urgent intervention from the South African Police Service (SAPS) on this issue, it will remain a critical challenge to provide reliable electricity to Johannesburg residents. It is only SAPS that can investigate these criminals and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) that can prosecute them.
Establishing a specialised cable theft and infrastructure protection unit within the SAPS will be a positive start. If necessary, the national government must even begin to consider deploying the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to oversee and protect our electrical infrastructure in the country.
Beyond this, the scrap metal industry needs to be thoroughly regulated.
The Department of Trade and Industry needs to set firm guidelines in place to control how scrap metal is bought and sold. It is impossible for the proprietors of these companies not to have some sort of idea about where the stolen infrastructure they weigh and exchange for cash comes from, as some are as obvious as street and traffic light poles.
In addition to this, dealers that decide to purchase stolen infrastructure need to be dealt with in the same way as the criminals who robbed the items in the first place.
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In the meantime, we all have a critical role to play.
Members of the public must never engage these criminals themselves. But what they can do is report absolutely anything that is suspicious to SAPS or their local municipal police force.
For now, we need all the eyes and ears we can muster to thwart this runaway robbery of critical infrastructure, so service delivery can be uninterrupted to our residents.
– Michael Sun is the City of Johannesburg’s mayoral committee member for environment and infrastructure.
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