City Power to stop paying for stolen service cables

City Power says it will no longer pay for stolen service cables that run from pole boxes to Johannesburg residents’ houses.

City Power says it incurred a nearly R200 million bill for replacing service cables in the past financial year.

City Power’s spokesperson Isaac Mangena says, “Recently we have seen an increase in the number of service cables that have been stolen. Service cables are those cables that move from the outside pillar box onto the wall of the customer’s house, so those cables are in the customer’s yard.”

“The expectation is that the responsibility to take care of those [cables] are for the customer, not for City Power. Every time they get stolen, until now, City Power has been replacing all of those. Last year, we lost close to R200 million replacing those cables.”

The audio below is reporting more on the story: