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- Extreme and unprecedented levels of load shedding-related vandalism, including damage to power infrastructure, are wreaking havoc among the City’s energy teams, especially in the large Area South.
- The area includes Wynberg, Mitchells Plain, Gugulethu and Philippi.
- New interventions are being rolled out to some of the City’s key infrastructure in response to the City’s key take-aways in the issues being faced.
Extreme and unprecedented levels of load shedding-related vandalism, including damage to power infrastructure, are wreaking havoc among the City’s energy teams, especially in the large Area South.
The area includes Wynberg, Mitchells Plain, Gugulethu and Philippi.
New interventions are being rolled out to some of the City’s key infrastructure in response to the City’s key take-aways in the issues being faced, such as:
- The crisis-levels of vandalism (made worse by load-shedding) and the damage caused by load-shedding means teams are operating in an abnormal environment that may unfortunately impact turnaround times.
- Dedicated energy teams have implemented new interventions to help enhance service delivery.
Although circumstances may differ, the City prioritises service requests as follows due to high volumes:
1. Area outages impacting large areas, including stretches of streetlights. These are complex faults that often require teams to search for the cause of the outage for kilometres; including digging up roads and pavements to find the fault. Vandalism poses a further headache as the vandalised infrastructure needs to be sourced from elsewhere and replaced.
2. Power supply to an individual property.
3. Single streetlight outages attended to only once and if resources become available.
The City’s Mayco member for energy Beverley van Reenen mentions how their energy teams are operating under abnormal circumstances. “The extreme impact of load-shedding on our power infrastructure (that was not designed for load-shedding) as well as the contribution of load-shedding to the increase of theft and vandalism, have led to extremely negative impacts and backlogs of service requests, especially single streetlight outages.”
She adds that many innovative interventions are being investigated, while operational changes are under way to enhance service delivery and turnaround times where required and also to eradicate backlogs as fast as possible. “At the heart of this lies the unprecedented impact of load-shedding-driven vandalism and the impact on maintenance capabilities, costs and human resources. If we stand together as a City, with our communities, we can bring the change that will help to protect our community infrastructure and enhance service delivery.”
Area South at a glance (January 2023 to 13 February 2024)
- Wynberg: 8 096 fault requests – 10% pertains to repeatedly vandalised infrastructure and theft.
- Mitchells Plain (metro vandalism hotspot): 10 291 fault requests – 31% of these pertain to repeatedly vandalised infrastructure like poles, and theft.
- Gugulethu: 7 402 fault requests – 25% pertain to repeatedly vandalised infrastructure and theft.
- Muizenberg: 4 154 fault requests – 15% pertains to repeatedly vandalised infrastructure and theft.
New interventions under way and continued include private security patrols; a dedicated law enforcement unit for energy; alternative lighting solutions for un-electrifiable communities; capacitating neighbourhood watch groups; hi-tech solutions under investigation; opening satellite equipment stores for faster replacement of infrastructure; appointing new public lighting contractors; operational changes to the escalation of requests and appointment of more artisans.
Residents are appealed to report all suspicious activities at or near electricity infrastructure to the City’s law enforcement agencies or the City’s Fraud Hotline on 0800 1100 77 or to the local police. The police remain the lead authority in crime prevention, the City concluded.
