Wynberg is one of four areas in the metro south that has been mentioned as a hotspot for crisis-levels of vandalism and the City of Cape Town has since implored residents to report when they see acts of vandalism – especially during load shedding.
Over 7 400 fault requests were made in Wynberg from last year January until Tuesday February 13 and 25% were for repeatedly vandalised infrastructure and theft.
Ward 63 councillor Carmen Siebritz said cable theft has become a major issue in Wynberg, along with other electrical vandalism and theft, and at last month’s Sub-council 20 meeting she tabled a motion to have the electricity department consider changing from overhead cabling to underground cabling throughout her ward, which includes Diep River and Plumstead.
“This takes time and I can’t tell what the timeline will be but that’s one of the options or measures we’re looking at to try and deter people from being able to vandalise and steal cables,” she said.
The ward also often requests law enforcement to patrol in the Wynberg area during load shedding – especially in the early hours of the morning.
Ms Siebritz said residents, who are the main victims of power outages caused by cable theft, have to report when they see vandalism and theft in order to stop the scourge.
Beverley van Reenen, the City’s Mayoral committee member for energy, said the extreme and unprecedented levels of load-shedding related vandalism as well as the damage to power infrastructure caused by load shedding is wreaking havoc on the City’s dedicated energy teams operating across the metro, especially in Wynberg, Mitchell’s Plain, Gugulethu and Philippi. It means teams are operating in an abnormal environment that may impact turnaround times.
Area outages impacting large areas, including stretches of street lights, will be prioritised first because of the complexity of the 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.
Second on the priority list will be power supply to individual properties and single street light outages will be attended to if and when resources become available.
“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 street light outages,” said Ms Van Reenen.
She said operational changes are under way to boost turnaround times where required and 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.”
Some of the other interventions under way include private security patrols, a dedicated Law Enforcement Unit for Energy, alternative lighting solutions for un-electrifiable communities, capacitating neighbourhood watch groups, the appointment of more artisans and hi-tech solutions under investigation.
Residents are encouraged to act by reporting 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 police.
