Municipality curbing electricity theft

MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Teams from the Mossel Bay Municipality's Directorate of Infrastructure Services this week removed 186 illegal electricity connections in the KwaNonqaba and Asla Park areas.

The operation was carried out on Tuesday, 12 July, with the assistance of the South African Police Services' Public Order Policing Unit.

A male suspect was arrested by the police in Dube Street, and caught in the act of making illegal electricity connections. It has been reported that up to 120 connections were removed in Dube Street.

The Mossel Bay Municipality's electrical service teams remove illegal electricity connections almost on a monthly basis. So far, in 2022, 900 illegal connections have been removed, with the most being in March this year at 291 and in July, 196.

Prolonged power outage

Residents in Exension 23, among others were left without electricity for an extended period of time from midnight on 11 July to the early morning hours of 12 July. This was due to cable theft after load shedding was implemented at midnight on 11 July.

Municipal teams attended to the problem and the electricity was restored before dawn on 12 July.

On Tuesday evening, residents experienced power outages after the scheduled load shedding period due to a circuit breaker that tripped on overload at the new Saunders 66/11kV sub-station.

"A portion of the KwaNonqaba load was also transferred to the Saunders Substation on 12 July after a 11kV cable was vandalized during loadshedding. Fortunately the 11kV cable was repaired earlier and it was possible to balance the loads," a spokesperson from the Directorate of Infrastructure Services said.

The public are reminded that cable theft, overloading and short circuits have a knock-on effect, causing circuit breakers to trip after hours.