Thursday, 22 July 2021: Eskom strongly condemns the continuous vandalism and theft of our equipment that is taking place across Gauteng. There has been an increase in incidents of vandalism and theft of our equipment resulting in the loss of revenue and increased replacement costs for Eskom.
Just this week, there were three incidents of stolen equipment. The first incident affected residents of Edenvale as they were left with no power for more than 20 hours after oil copper tubes were stolen from a pressure box, which caused cable ends to explode inside the substation. The second incident was at Venter shaft near Westonaria where a suspect was arrested while busy stealing structural members of pylons. This compromised and weakened the integrity of the pylons since the structural members have a mechanical function to support the pylons, hence this resulted in the collapse of six towers. The third incident involved a number of transformers that were stolen, leaving residents of this community with no electricity. These criminal acts do not only affect Eskom, but they also affect businesses and our customers which has a negative impact on the economy.
Photos of the collapsed pylons
