'Our teams successfully disconnected and confiscated more than one truckload of cable used for illegal connections.  

'The City wishes to be clear; we will continue to protect our electricity infrastructure and those who are legally supplied with electricity. We have to protect our broader communities who often have to go without power for long periods of time due to illegal connections. These unlawful acts also damage our infrastructure and it takes time to replace, again leaving communities in the dark. We also have to reduce the risk of members of the community or children being electrocuted due to the unsafe illegal connections. We will not allow acts of criminality to have an impact on the supply to residents and their safety.

'Illegal connections place a tremendous strain on the grid and we are seeing more cases of prolonged outages as a result of illegal connection damage. To put things into perspective, when an overhead cable is damaged during an illegal connection or when it is vandalised for the material, it could take City teams up to 8 hours to repair the damaged overhead infrastructure.  Illegal connections are being connected to overhead infrastructure, streetlights, kiosks, mini substations as well as underground cabling. Repairing the same infrastructure is simply unsustainable and we will do everything in our power to protect infrastructure and supply to residents.

'We once again ask communities to stand with us against those to vandalise, illegally connect and stand in the way of service delivery. Report illegal connections to the City and anonymous tip offs are welcome. The City is offering a reward to anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest, confiscation of stolen or illegal goods or the handing in of illegal or stolen goods,' said the City's Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen.

Anonymous tip-offs welcomed

Reward of R5 000 if tip-offs lead to arrests.

Call: 0800 1100 77