An electrician from Boksburg on the East Rand was shot at a substation last weekend when he attended to a power outage.
Dewaal Smit went to the substation in Dayanglen on Saturday around 20:00 to carry out repairs when he was shot.
The exact details surrounding the shooting are not known.
Zweli Dlamini, spokesperson for the Ekurhuleni metro, says Smit was rushed to a hospital after the incident and is currently in a serious condition in this hospital.
“The city strongly condemns this senseless attack on a man who left the comfort of his home and his family on a Saturday night to assist the community, only to be attacked by senseless thugs.”
Dlamini says the shooting incident forced the municipal team of electricians on Saturday evening to abandon their repair work which meant that Morganridge, Dayanglen and Boksburg West were left without power for the entire evening.
Power supply was only restored in these areas on Sunday.
Dlamini says incidents of this nature are becoming a big problem.
“In fact, our workers are now reluctant and even refuse to attend to power outages at night because of this criminality.”
Dlamini says that these municipal workers’ behavior is quite understandable as their work appears to be life-threatening. “The unfortunate part is that this means that our customers and residents alike will now have to endure prolonged power outages.
“While we remain committed to providing quality and sustainable services at all times, such incidents of criminality derail our efforts. We therefore appeal to our communities to help protect these employees because they perform a critical task.
“We have people who need electricity to survive, and without it they can die. Unfortunately, the criminals don’t care about that,” says Dlamini.
