Two contractors arrested for illegally reconnecting a customer following a cut-off operation in an affluent area
City Power would like to send a stern warning to its contractors who engage in criminal activities including reconnecting defaulting disconnected customers that action will be taken against them.
This is after two City Power contractors were apprehended by our Security Risk Management Team and private security last night (Thursday, 15 August 2024) following a tip-off regarding suspicious activity in Sundowner, Johannesburg. The contractors were caught red-handed reconnecting a customer’s power supply, which our Revenue Protection team had previously disconnected earlier in the afternoon during a cut-off operation.
The suspects were found in possession of tools including a bolt cutter, 4 meters, and a few circuit breakers. They were subsequently handed over to the Honeydew Police Station for processing and charged with tampering with essential infrastructure.
Yesterday, our revenue protection team together with law enforcement officials led the cut-off operation under the Randburg Service Delivery Centre (SDC) supply areas as part of the enhanced revenue collection drive. The team successfully disconnected eight defaulting residential complexes and one business customer who collectively owe a staggering R22.956 million in unpaid electricity bills.
Additionally, the team disconnected one property which was not on the list but was an illegal connection tip-off. During the operation, another defaulting residential complex in Windsor East owed over R8.4 million had also illegally connected to our grid. As a result, our technical team removed our infrastructure including the power supply cable.
City Power CEO, Tshifularo Mashava welcomed the arrest of the two suspects and praised the entity’s ongoing community partnership programme on electricity network infrastructure security to protect critical infrastructure.
“We welcome the arrest of the two alleged suspects following a tip-off from a community member. We are grateful that community members are taking charge and reporting suspicious activities around our infrastructure. This is a testament that our community partnership programme to protecting essential infrastructure is working” asserts Mashava.
“This arrest is a significant step forward in our fight against illegal reconnections and to root out corrupt contractors. Their actions undermine our efforts to curb illegal connections, collect revenue, and compromise the integrity of our network. We will continue to collaborate with law enforcement to apprehend those involved in these criminal activity” added Mashava.
Additionally, Mashava reiterated that these cut-off operations align with the entity’s broader strategy to recover billions owed to it.
“We have resumed our weekly revenue collection drives across the City, and yesterday we targeted several affluent areas in Sundowner, Bryanston, Northriding, Windsor and Randparkrif. The operation was part of our broader strategy to recover the grand amount owed to the Randburg SDC which is currently sitting at R550 million. However, City Power recorded R9 billion in customer debt across all SDCs. We will continue to disconnect defaulting customers for non-payment to send a strong message to customers with outstanding balances to settle their debts or face disconnection,” concluded Mashava.
City Power Isaac Mangena, Spokesperson said:
This practice negatively impacts the tenants and owners as they are now left in the dark. We condemn this practice with the strongest possible terms, and we urge tenants and owners to hold their body corporates accountable for this. Additionally, we urge customers to visit our centres to make arrangements to pay their outstanding bills to avoid facing a disconnection which comes with additional penalties.
City Power further warns individuals that illegally connecting themselves to our electricity network constitutes as tampering with essential infrastructure crime which carries a maximum of 15 years of jail time without an option of a fine.