On the morning of 29 April our suburb in Fontainebleau’s power wasn’t restored after load shedding. It took City Power the whole weekend to help us get our power back. While they were busy trying to restore the power, I stopped and asked some of the workers what the problem was. The fuses got stolen from one of the electrical boxes on Maria Street.
Exactly one month later in the morning hours of the 26th of May, the substation was broken into and they stole cables and transformers which left us without power again. There’s no doubt that these 2 robberies were linked and it’s only a matter of time before they move from substation to substation causing more and more trouble than what our electricity system can handle.
After this incident, plenty of community members have been wanting to get involved and stand together to make a difference for ourselves, our families, our property investments and our own lifestyles.
We are privileged to have many businesses and skills in our surroundings and thus far many stood up and volunteered services in order to keep guard at this substation. Papamani and Trojan Security stepped forward and helped to keep guard while the Eskom staff was at work right through the night. Since then we’ve locked up the substation and the security partners have been patrolling and reporting every hour during the night.
As a community, we would like to call anyone of interest who would like to get involved and contribute to helping us adopt this substation.
Our needs list:
- Security equipment & services
- Paint & Hardware to remove the graffiti
- Steel gates & Locks
- Garden Services (or volunteers to contribute time)
