Cape Town – City of Tshwane electricity technicians were reportedly held hostage by a group of community members from Mamelodi East after a trip occurred in the area following load shedding on Tuesday.
In a statement, the city’s municipality said the technicians were attending to a service interruption in the area.
However, upon their arrival, they were met with the unexpected. Some angry community members, serviced by the Mamelodi Hinterland Substation held the technicians hostage and forced them to switch off electricity at Nellmapius Ext 22 and 24, a neighbouring suburb.
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“The petrified officials had no choice but to comply for safety reasons,” said the City in a statement.
Tshwane Metro Police Department officers came to the technicians’ rescue but they were allegedly chased away by some sections of the community.
“A decision was taken to hastily withdraw all the teams from sites in Mamelodi for safety reasons to prevent the community from forcing them to perform further illegal operations,” said the City.
The behaviour of the community members was vehemently condemned by the City, saying it was concerned about the increasing incidents of harassment and robbery of officials while on duty in Nellmapius, some parts of Soshanguve and now in some sections of Mamelodi.
Tshwane condemns intimidation of officials in Mamelodi. pic.twitter.com/gQphP7aa1w
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) May 18, 2022
The city said it was concerned about the increasing incidents of harassment and robbery of officials while on duty in Nellmapius, some parts of Soshanguve and now in some sections of Mamelodi.
“Service interruptions relating to water and electricity occur from time to time due to a slew of factors, such as theft of cables, vandalism of infrastructure and illegal connection.
“The daily load shedding imposed by power utility Eskom has compounded the problem as the fragile electricity infrastructure is not designed to be switched on and off frequently,” the City said.
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Compiled by Sinothando Siyolo
