The contractor has been taken to Roodepoort SAPS and is expected to appear in court tomorrow, where he is facing charges relating to tampering with essential infrastructure, vandalism, acts of sabotage, and a possible attempted murder charge for putting the lives of the technicians in danger. City Power chief executive Tshifularo Mashava has welcomed the arrest of one of the contractors for sabotage and tampering with essential electricity infrastructure. The suspect was found inside City Power switching substation in the Roodepoort area with working equipment. The community had initially let the suspect off the hook, but City Power General Manager: Security Services Sergeant Thela set into motion a plan to have him apprehended. Within 24 hours, the suspect was tracked and informed to submit to Head Office, Reuven, for questioning.
On arrival, the suspect was immediately arrested with the assistance of the JMPD Tactical Team and placed into lawful custody. The City Power has been experiencing a blatant attack on their infrastructure, with the Roodepoort area the most brutal hit. In the last month, there have been at least 100 incidents where mini substations were vandalised, and cables and fuses were stolen, leading to widespread outages in and around various areas in Roodepoort. City Power commends the work of the security cluster following the successful prosecution and sentencing to 15 years of direct imprisonment of a suspect arrested in March 2023 near Joburg Fruit Market in the City Deep. The CEO has commended the City Power Security for relentlessly supporting the SAPS investigations and the NPA during the prosecution process. Without such joint efforts and support, the suspect would not have received such a hefty sentence.
