Bengal Street residents in Ext 3 are once again up in arms, after they were plunged into darkness, following the theft of underground cables from a mini substation, this past Monday night at around 10pm.
According to resident Anthony Naidoo (35), this is the third time in the past few months that the cables have been stolen from this very spot.
"The theft must have occurred in the late hours of May 28. There was a big repair operation during the beginning of this month at the substation, but the cables were only laid at a depth of about 300mm, which is not up to code. Temporary aluminum bundle cables were replaced with permanent copper cables," he claimed. Anthony went on to claim that in this latest incident, the thieves knew exactly which cables to cut and only cut the low voltage cables, but left the high voltage ones.
Anthony told the Laudium Sun that he later met the technicians doing repairs after the theft and claimed that they informed him of their suspicions that the cables were tampered with by vagrants in the area. "We thought the power went out due to the bad weather," he said.
"This time the electricity was only restored to our street on Tuesday afternoon at around 4pm, almost 18 hours later," Anthony added, exasperatedly.
Irene Braithe of the Tshwane Metro told the Laudium Sun, that the ongoing theft of cables affects the city economy and individuals alike.
Urging residents to report cable theft incidents, the city said, vandals and thieves appeared set on stealing copper from substations to sell to scrap metal dealers, impacting negatively on Tshwane's economy.
"This causes severe damage – not only to the municipal equipment – but also to appliances in affected households and businesses as a result of power surges. Businesses are left without power and people are delayed from reaching their jobs," she said.
Irene added that the repair costs ran into millions of rand, annually.
"These are funds that could be better spent on improving service delivery."
The city said although policing was a national competency, residents should work together to ensure that crime-related power supply interruptions were curbed.
"We are always grateful for any information received from the public. They are our eyes and ears. They must come forward with any information regarding cable theft, so we can take action immediately. Theft should be reported on 012-358-7095/6," Irene concluded.
The stolen cables in Ext 3 that were replaced this past Tuesday.
Frustrated Ext 3 resident, Anthony Naidoo.