When the mini-substation on Fern Road was spotted burning on October 3 at around 18:00, residents of Weltevreden Park’s typical Monday night routine was interrupted. According to Ward 126 councillor David Brand, City Power is still looking into the event and the cause of the fire is still unknown.

Glynis Rozendo, administrator of the Facebook group WELTEVREDENPARK COMMUNITY 2021, posted a video of the blaze at 18:02 on Monday.

Isaac Mangena, a spokesperson for City Power, urged police and other law-enforcement organisations to take additional action to prevent the theft and vandalism of energy infrastructure in the Roodepoort area from increasing.

“Streetlights, mini-substations, transformer substations, and theft of cables, fuses, mini-substation doors, and copper parts in and around transformers have all seen an upsurge in vandalism. This occurs once per week.”

In the past week alone eight City Power mini-substations were vandalised; 92 circuit breakers stolen; three chambers broken into but nothing taken; countless cables stolen, three of which happened on Monday night (October 3); 82 fuses stolen; and 18 pillar boxes broken into.

There were 11 incidents between the weekend and Tuesday morning, October 4, added Mangena.

“A guy was severely burned yesterday when the mini-substation he vandalised exploded in his face. When the crew arrived at the location of the incident, they discovered burned clothing but no sign of the person. The police are pursuing him,” explained Mangena.

These weekly acts of vandalism have a negative impact on the residents’ access to electricity because they must endure hours of outages in addition to load-shedding. More specifically, it has an impact on City Power’s operating and material budgets at the depot, which are drained, and it is placing an undue burden on the City’s overtime expense. Even though City Power is stepping up security, there aren’t enough resources to stop this scourge.

“As we feel some of the acts verge on major crimes of sabotage and crimes against the state, we have enlisted the help of the SAPS and JMPD. Additionally, we are preparing to work together with private security, neighbourhood watches and CPFs to help City Power protect electricity infrastructure,” concluded Mangena.

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