With illegal Zama Zamas and copper cable resellers said to be stripping the City of its valuable underground infrastructure, including electric copper cables, City Power has appealed for help in combating the terrible reign of terror waged by these syndicates. Power utility, City Power has appealed for help in rooting out underground cable theft as illegal Zama Zamas and scrap metal resellers strip the City of its copper cable infrastructure.Photographer Ayanda Ndamane/ Independent Newspapers
Power utility, City Power has appealed to law enforcement agencies in the city of Joburg and the province to assist with ridding the city of illegal Zama-Zamas who are being accused of stripping and stealing valuable underground infrastructure, including copper cables.
On Monday, City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena revealed that the city has been experiencing an overwhelming increase in illegal activities underground which he revealed as the biggest source of the recent outages affecting the inner city and the surrounding areas.
Mangena said the call for increased levels of law enforcement has been heightened by the incident over the weekend in which a gun battle between City Power security officials and illegal miners.
During the gun battle one security official was reported injured while two of the miners were fatally shot dead by the City Power security officials.
It was reported that other criminals managed to vanish into the dark alleys underground.
The incident started on Friday when the City Power technical team from the Inner City Service Delivery Centre (SDC) was responding to a widespread outage that required an assessment in the tunnels.
“While inside, the team, which sought protection from City Power security following the recent dangerous encounters with criminal gangs underground, was confronted by a group of armed suspects who threatened them and demanded they leave, to which the technical team complied,” Mangena said.
Mangena has revealed that in response, on Saturday, 18 January 2025, City Power reinforced security measures and conducted a sweep of the tunnels to apprehend or remove the suspects.
“Four criminals were detected underground approximately 600 meters from the Bree substation around midday by our security team. Without warning, the suspects opened fire at City Power technicians and teams, injuring one security officer. In a subsequent gun battle underground, our security team returned fire, killing two suspects, while the other two fled,” he added.
The injured security officer was rushed to Milpark Hospital and remains in a critical condition. The deceased suspects have been identified as a Lesotho national and a Zimbabwean national.
“A criminal case involving murder, attempted murder, and damage to essential infrastructure has been opened with the South African Police Services (SAPS) at Johannesburg Central. Intelligence suggests that criminal groups have increasingly taken control of the tunnels, as demonstrated by another confrontation that happened earlier today, 20 January 2025,” Mangena further stated.
"This is the sad reality for our technicians on a daily basis in the tunnels and often on the surface. Criminals have taken over our infrastructure, harvesting cables and willing to kill anyone who comes in their way,“ he said.
Meanwhile, City Power CEO, Tshifularo Mashava has decried the situation as too costly for the city to manage.
"We find ourselves as City Power being forced to spend more money on securing the infrastructure, taking away money to keep the lights on. It's for this reason that we appeal to the law enforcers to step in and assist us in curbing the scourge of cable theft and vandalism.
“More so we need to take the fight to those who buy the materials including scrap metal dealers and the beneficiaries of this criminality," Mashava said.
siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za