Buffalo City Municipality says a raid in informal settlements near Scenery Park this week led to the discovery of four illegally connected transformers that had been “destroyed.”
City spokesperson, Samknelo Ngwenya, said a joint operation was carried out on Wednesday by SAPS, Eskom, and BCM, where they found the transformers connected in the BCM 11kv network in an informal near Scenery Park.
He said the community and a business were constantly experiencing power cuts due to the overload on the BCM electricity network.
Ngwenya said; “We believe that the people doing the installations in these areas are contractors who do work for either government or a state-owned entity as this is a sophisticated and complex job.”
He said over the past two financial years, Buffalo City Metro recorded around 301 incidents of vandalism or theft on the electrical network leading to losses of R26 million.
Twenty-one suspects have been arrested so far and have, or are due to appear in court.
“BCM has spent an accumulated number of 219 days in a year conducting raids. The Metro is on a mission to fight vandalism and cable theft head on, hence joint operations and raids are being regularly conducted,” Ngwenya added.
