'Over recent months, the City has seen an increase in incidents of prolonged electricity area outages, particularly because of vandalised and stolen infrastructure. The City has intensified its efforts in protecting City electricity infrastructure and is currently deploying the newly launched Electricity Safety teams in communities to assist with protecting critical infrastructure, especially during higher stages of load-shedding.

'Where prolonged unplanned outages happen, City teams do everything in their power to repair and restore supply in the shortest possible time. The majority of these incidents are occurring during periods of load-shedding. In general, electricity restoration times for cable faults and damaged infrastructure are often difficult to share with residents. Due to the complexity of a particular fault and voltage of cable infrastructure, repairs and restoring of electricity supply often takes time. 

'Members of the public have also been noticing our new Electricity safety teams in their communities especially where our critical power infrastructure is located. The information provided to us by members of the public is greatly assisting our teams in clamping down on incidents of theft and vandalism. Work is ongoing and we encourage residents to continue reporting to the City and the SAPS,' said the City's Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen.

The City's Energy Directorate is protecting electricity infrastructure by:

• Launching the new Energy Law Enforcement and Technical Unit deployed to protect infrastructure in communities especially in identified red zones
• Prioritising repairs for all extended outage related faults caused by load-shedding and vandalism
• Launching education and awareness drives in communities to curb vandalism of critical electricity infrastructure. Our work is yielding positive results in the majority of areas.
• Allocating additional budget to support law enforcement deployment, enhance security at key points and increase monitoring.