City Power removes 60 000kg of illegal cables at informal settlement [VIDEO]

City Power has removed and confiscated approximately 60 000kg of cables valued at around R6 million from the Kanana, Rabie Ridge informal settlement on Wednesday.

The utility said the informal settlement is one of many across the city of Johannesburg that are contributing significantly towards network overload and infrastructure damage, leading to prolonged outages.

Watch City Power removing illegally connected cables from Kanana

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Illegal connections

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the  extreme levels of illegal connections in the area is also contributing towards the enforcement of load reduction to avoid complete destruction of the network.

“In this area alone, City Power has replaced a total of 10 transformers from August this year. In August, three transformers were replaced, four in September and now halfway through October, we have already had three damaged transformers.

“This is not only highly unsustainable and excessively costly to manage, but it’s unfairly affecting customers in neighbouring areas that are actually paying for services. In response to this challenge, we have committed to conducting routine network monitoring and physical assessments, to ensure that whenever a case of illegal connection is spotted, we act swiftly and decisively to deal with it,” Mangena said.

Cables

Mangena said City Power it carried out a similar operation in Kanana a few months ago.

“We carried out the removal of illegal connection operation where we cleared around 18 000 kilograms of cables that were connected to our grid.

“Last week, community members staged a public demonstration outside our Midrand Service Delivery Centre offices, to raise their concern about a prolonged outage which was caused by a damaged pole-mounted transformer. That transformer failed due to illegal connections. A new transformer has been installed and we hope that with illegal connections removed, it will hold the load and remain operational for a long time, Mangena said.

City Power has called on residents, particularly those who are paying for services to help the utility monitor and report suspicious activities around its network.