CITY Power is spending millions of rands to deal with employees safety.
This was revealed by the City Power’s spin-doctor Isaac Mangena.
This follows escalating attacks on employees responsible for electricity supply, that have seen the utility spending more than R100m on private security.
“The utility spent about R100m for private security to protect our technicians who are increasingly facing threats, intimidation and violent attacks while working in high-risk areas such as Alexandra,” he said.
Other areas of concern includes Lenasia South, Tshepisong- Roodepoort, Houtkoppen- Randburg, Rabie Ridge in Midrand and Naturena, south of Joburg,
Mangena said on a normal day, the utility deals with about 200 outages and its teams are sometimes escorted by metro police officers.
“That on its own is taking away the resources from the law enforcement by JMPD Johannesburg Metro Police Department, enforcement of the bylaws, and traffic control.
It is not practical for that to happen. We end up diverting resources from our own money to hire private security to escort some of the teams in the hotspot areas,” noted Mangena, very worried.
Technicians confirmed they were attacked, beaten up and saw people climbing on top of city vehicles, making it difficult for them to escape the angry mob.
Themba Magwaza, stakeholder relations for City Power in Alexandra, said they restored power to the area after residents started cooperating.
“Most residents here do not buy electricity, they connect illegally and when we install meters then they protest. As winter approaches, we are going to see more protests from people demanding that we reconnect them while they do not even pay for the electricity.”
“We are committed to enforcing the rule of law and protecting our employees who work daily under difficult and often dangerous conditions to bring services to communities,” says City Power CEO -Tshifularo Mashava, who condemned the violence, saying criminality and intimidation would not be tolerated.
Meanwhile, Eskom has implemented loadshedding effective from today 4pm until 10am on Thursday.
Image ( City Power technicians cutting illegal connections in Alex).
