City Power worried about repeated attempts of electricity infrastructure vandalism, theft

Johannesburg City Power said it is concerned about recurring attempts to vandalise and steal essential electricity infrastructure.

This month alone, the power utility said there have been three fires at the Central Substation, which are suspected to have been caused by cable theft attempts.

Large parts of the Johannesburg CBD have been without electricity since Saturday following the latest fire at the station.

The outage occurred just a day after electricity was restored following another two-week-long outage.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said it appears that people are deliberately targeting electricity infrastructure.

“The latest incident is the third fire at Central Substation in a month and the sixth incident involving fires at the substation since January 2026. Four of these six incidents have been confirmed to have elements of cable theft and vandalism.”

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