Last October, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said, during his quarterly update on the state of Eskom, that cable theft was costing the SOE roughly R50 million a year.

As for the general state of Eskom, the words ‘death spiral’, and more recently ‘code red’, tell you everything that you need to know.

Back to those cables. De Ruyter appealed to the public to report the theft to Eskom or the police, to help combat disruptions in power generation.

That, it seems, is easier said than done.

In East London, two Buffalo City Metro cops were recently deployed to recover disconnected cables from an informal settlement that illegally gets its electricity from a stolen transformer.

According to News24, a group of about nine men decided to intervene, which amounted to a tug-of-war between them and the officers, and ended with a warning shot fired (although that didn’t stop one guy from sticking to the task).

Observe:

I guess the officers won?

The altercation happened after the men tried to remove cables from a municipal vehicle, said Buffalo City Metro spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya, who also pointed out that using the cables to illegally generate electricity in the informal settlement wasn’t exactly safe.

“This is extremely dangerous and was our reasoning for removing this illegal network. This [illegal network] has left the surrounding areas of Highway Gardens and local businesses in the dark. We want to commend the bravery of our law enforcement officers who refused to succumb to the mob despite being outnumbered.”

They are currently conducting multiple raids in an effort to combat theft, vandalism and illegal connections. On March 15, at the COVID Command Centre, it was reported that 950 electricity lines had been removed, that week alone.

Once again, the community has been called on to assist.

They might want to send more cops next time.

[source:news24]