A search is underway for a City Power employee who was kidnapped in Lenasia South Ext 4 earlier today. The incident occurred while a team of technicians were busy with operations on site when they were attacked by a group of armed criminals who hijacked their white Toyota Hilux GD6, registration number LG 82 DB GP and took off with one of the employees.
Tshifularo Mashava, City Power’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said: “We are outraged by such a violent crime meted against our employees while executing their duties. More than anything, we are concerned about the safety of our employee who has been kidnapped by these criminals.”
The power utility is currently providing psychological support to the victims of the hijacking, while working with authorities to find one of the kidnapped technicians and the hijacked car.
City Power is also conducting a safety assessment, to determine whether it’s safe for our teams to continue working in that area.
Mashava added: “We urge residents of Lenasia South Ext 4 and surrounding neighbourhoods to help in providing any information that could lead to the apprehension of the perpetrators and safe rescue of our employee.”
The utility appeals to communities to rally around its employees as they work on ensuring that City Power continues to render electricity services to them and attend to their calls.
“While we have an option to request escorts from JMPD to enable us to render service to the communities, this is unsustainable and costly, and may affect our response times to outages in hostile and volatile areas. We will not hesitate to pull out our teams from any area where their safety is compromised”, concluded Mashava.
In that incident, it happened that while one technician was verifying the address, the rest of the crew (one male and two females) in the two vans were hijacked. The male crew member was physically assaulted while the two females were left physically unharmed. The employees were also robbed of their phones, bags and toolboxes, and they were also made to transfer money from their bank accounts. The cars were later found abandoned in Lawley and near Meriting Squatter Camp.
Anyone with information that can assist in the matter may contact the local Police or call City Power Risk Control on 011 490 7900, 011 490 7911. Alternatively, one can call City Power’s anonymous line, 0800 00 25 87.
