The City carries out important maintenance and repair work to electricity infrastructure in areas across the metro on a daily basis. In hotspot and volatile areas, the teams often require the support of Law Enforcement agencies or the South African Police Service to ensure the work is completed safely. 

In May, the City's Mayoral Committee Member for Energy Councillor Beverley van Reenen and Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, Alderman JP Smith launched the new Energy Safety team, to assist Law Enforcement agencies and the SAPS in protecting critical City electricity infrastructure, as well as to assist Electricity teams when repair and maintenance work is done in hotspot areas. This Financial Year, the City allocated an additional budget to support law enforcement deployment, enhance security at key points and increase monitoring of critical electricity infrastructure.

'The City's electricity maintenance programme and the management of its electricity network remains top notch, and we are doing all we can through our maintenance programme, to ensure that the infrastructure remains in the best condition. Our teams are on the ground for maintenance and repairs on a daily basis so that our residents have safe and reliable electricity supply. However, our infrastructure takes a hammering due to Eskom's load-shedding at higher stages as well as continued vandalism and theft of infrastructure by criminals. 

'City officials work in extremely difficult circumstances at times, and have been robbed of their personal belongings in some instances while delivering services in communities. Since the launch of the new team, our officials are able to carry out work in hotspot areas safely and attend to more service requests. The City has seen an increase in the number of vandalism related incidents in recent months with more than 350 incidents recorded in the first quarter of the year. The Mowbray district is the worst affected with more than 120 recorded vandalism and theft incidents for the first quarter.

'We will continue to monitor all hot spot areas but residents are encouraged to report any incidents of theft, vandalism and damage to infrastructure to the City and the SAPS,' said, Councillor van Reenen.