Warwick Bruce Chapman

I would like to voice my support for the current round of projects to upgrade legacy substations in Glenwood and other parts of the City.  In this instance I speak not only in my role as a councillor but also as a small business owner operating in the Glenwood area and providing employment to over 30 people.

In the past year the Bulwer Park substation in Glenwood has unfortunately been hit 3 times by serious incidents of breakins and the theft of equipment and cables which has resulted in surge damage and downtime in the surrounding area.  The downtime, moreso than the electrical damage which is covered by insurance, puts businesses in the affected areas at significant risk as a result of lost revenue and as reduced service levels.

I would like to urge council to consider more seriously the challenge of ensuring the security of assets like substations which are integral to the economy of the City and its capacity to generate job-soaking growth.  In the case of the Bulwer Park substation, the perimeter fence was damaged during the first break-in and again during the second and neither holes were repaired before the third incident.  Additionally many substations like this one are very poorly lit and thus it is difficult for members of the public to see what is happening in or around the substations at night.

Frustratingly, the amount of money earned by selling goods stolen from substations is only a fraction of what it costs to replace, let alone the damage to the economy and insurance record of the City.  In one instance, a City Electrical Engineer indicated to me that a neutral bar stolen and sold for a few hundred Rands would cost over R6 000 to replace.  In that same situation, businesses in the area were subject to over 24 hours of downtime resulting in hundreds of thousands of Rands in loss of income.

The classic example of minor theft devastating the economy of the City was the Isipingo tower last year where R200-300 worth of bolts stolen causing R2 million and Toyota alone lost R50 million as a result of being out of electricity for 4 days.

While I have little doubt that City officials are taking a proactive approach to the very real challenges posed by issues like cable theft, I felt it necessary to also bring a real world example of this issue and its impacts to the attention of my colleagues here in Council.  Often all there is in the way of getting the right things done in the interests of the brighter future of our City is political will and I thus implore you to consider the serious impact of these outages on the economy of the City, especially at a time when job creation is such a crucial imperative.