Residents in parts of Cape Town continue to face electricity disruptions as Eskom works to clear a growing fault restoration backlog in areas including Delft and Khayelitsha. The state-owned enterprise (SOE) has reported that a surge in vandalism, theft, and illegal electricity connections is hindering their restoration efforts. According to Eskom, these actions cause extensive damage to critical infrastructure and prolonged outages for thousands of customers, with the SOE urging residents to assist in protecting local infrastructure for the betterment of their communities.
“Eskom urges residents and community leaders to work with us to protect critical electricity infrastructure and report any criminal activity. Theft, vandalism and illegal electricity connections continue to undermine the reliability of the network and compromise service delivery and negatively impact the lives, safety and livelihoods of thousands of customers,” said Eskom.
Khayelitsha Ward 95 Councillor Ayanda Thethani reiterated Eskom’s remarks, emphasising that maintenance occurs almost daily, yet illegal connections continue to cause issues.
“Transformers are fixed almost every day, but the issue is that people connect illegally, and that is why transformers cannot take the amount of illegal connections, and it ends up losing its power,” explained the ward councillor.
Thethani has suggested that the City of Cape Town collaborate closely with Eskom to ensure the electrification of informal settlements in the affected areas, which would subsequently reduce the number of illegal connections made by residents of these settlements.
Photo: sourced
