Cape Town - Eskom is intensifying efforts in hot spot areas for electricity theft and infrastructure vandalism after a significant rise and even extortion of Eskom staff and its contractors in recent months.
This has resulted in increased danger to the community and slowed service delivery. It has even claimed the lives of innocent children.
To encourage local communities to actively combat this crime, Eskom’s Cape coastal cluster yesterday launched the Khayelitsha Community Co-operatives Initiative, which aims to enable collaborative partnerships with communities, businesses and stakeholders to find solutions to reduce electricity theft and infrastructure vandalism.
Eskom zone manager Tracy Knight said that the initiative focuses on establishing collaborations between Eskom and the Khayelitsha community to reduce non-technical losses (theft) and to minimise vandalism.
Knight said that the approach of this programme was to target high loss feeders in the Western Cape, of which Khayelitsha was identified as a priority area.
The main issues affecting continuity of electricity supply in the area were vandalism, theft, ghost vending, the high crime rate, illegal connections, access to infrastructure and extortion.
“There have been numerous cases of gunpoint robberies of Eskom and contractor staff. Extortion of Eskom and its contractors has also increased since 2022, leading to the suspension of services in certain areas until specific arrangements were made with communities to ensure safety of staff before services could resume,” Knight said.
Several maintenance, capital and electrification projects have either been stopped or delayed due to extortion of contractors, including pole replacements and the Tugela substation and Phola Park electrification projects.
Mbulelo Yedwa, the general manager of Eskom distribution in the Cape coastal cluster, said: “We must crack down on illegal connections in our communities to ensure that our paying customers can enjoy a reliable electricity supply. Apart from that, we must take every measure to keep our children safe from harm caused by electrical hazards.”
Ndithini Tyhido, leader of the Khayelitsha Development Forum, apologised to the Eskom team for the conduct of some in the community and said: “We are not rascals, we are not a community that threatens people with guns, we are not a community that extorts money from people.
“The police depend on us as communities to let them know who the extortionists are. Community leaders want to come forth with information about extortion but the problem is extortion is intelligence driven.”
Tyhido said the people of Khayelitsha had no choice but to work with Eskom to address these issues and for this initiative to be a success, more engagement and action with the locals needed to be taken.
“We must not be ruled by thugs,” Tyhido said.