The City is carrying out urgent infrastructure repairs to severely damaged infrastructure in Schaapkraal caused by deliberate and repeated vandalism and illegal connections. The Schaapkraal community has been severely impacted by the ongoing vandalism of electricity infrastructure. Work is ongoing and the required infrastructure is being sourced so that supply is restored as soon as possible, but it is not sustainable to keep repairing the damage caused by illegal connections. The City wishes to be clear that it has a zero tolerance approach towards electricity vandalism and will continue to act to protect electricity supply to residents.
Read more below:
Over the recent months, the City’s Electricity teams have been attending to numerous incidents of infrastructure vandalism and damage caused by illegal connections, which have affected supply to Schaapkraal residents.
Due to safety concerns in Schaapkraal and the immediate surrounding areas, the City’s electricity teams have been attending to repairs and replacing infrastructure with the assistance of the South African Police Service and City Law Enforcement teams. While the City remains committed to providing services to all areas in the metro, the safety of members of staff and contractors remains of utmost consideration.
‘Our teams have repeatedly repaired and replaced the same critical supply infrastructure in Schaapkraal and this is simply unsustainable. On Sunday, 12 May 2024, our teams attended to damaged infrastructure and restored supply to residents; however, when the work was completed and teams had left the area, the same infrastructure was vandalised again – leaving residents without electricity supply. Due to the ongoing damage to the community infrastructure, the reliability of the area network has been affected as a result.
‘Electricity supply has been restored to the affected Schaapkraal residents; however, a small number of the affected residents will be without supply for a longer time, until the damaged infrastructure is replaced entirely. This work is intricate and it is not possible to give accurate estimated restoration times due to the nature of the required repairs. It is important to note that alternative electricity supply via generators will not be feasible due to safety concerns in the area.
‘Our Electricity teams are engaging with all relevant stakeholders to discuss the crisis level vandalism in the area so that longer term solutions can be established,’ said Acting Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Siseko Mbandezi.
Vandalised and illegal connections
What teams are finding on the ground in general, in hotspot areas around the metro such as Area South:
1. The destruction caused by vandalism and theft is so severe in some areas that entire circuits and grids need to be rebuilt. The restoration of power in many cases is thus not an uncomplicated and fast task as it could take a week or more to rebuild an entire grid for a street or area.
2. The escalating safety situation is a real threat to service delivery. The City and its contractors can only attend to service requests when it is safe to do so. Where possible, City teams are being accompanied by City law enforcement or private security when resources are available. The City is advising many of its contractors to set in place plans to be able to rapidly leave a particular area if the security risk becomes too great as teams are very vulnerable when they are attempting to fix infrastructure in some of the high risk communities.
3. Repeated vandalism – within hours: For instance, recently in Leonsdale, City teams fixed streetlights and the very next day, most of the lights were vandalised again. The City is looking at technological innovations to reduce this risk, but teams are working under abnormal conditions.
4. City teams remain absolutely dedicated to service delivery despite the challenges.
Let’s ACT to protect our power!
We call on communities across the city to help keep the lights on and to adopt the electricity infrastructure in their neighbourhoods. Keep your eyes and ears open to criminality. When we all work together, we can make a big impact. Report any and all criminals stealing or vandalising community infrastructure.
Report suspicious behaviour to the City’s Public Emergency Communication Centre: 021 480 7700
Supplied by: City of Cape Town
