15 cars damaged at City Power after protesters demand electricity
Johannesburg - City Power employees in Klipspruit, Soweto, were left frustrated following a violent protest that resulted in 15 of their cars vandalised and three security officers assaulted at the depot.
It is believed the attacks started around 7pm on Wednesday.
The car owners who were not at work at the time the incident, said they were shocked to find their cars without windows, windscreens and batteries.
Phiwokwakhe Dlamini whose Toyota Avanza was destroyed and almost set alight, said he was out on duty when he received a call from his line manager telling him to not go back to the depot.
“My line manager called me and told me that I should just go straight home because the depot was under attack,” he said.
Dlamini said he always parked his car at work and took the company car when going out on a duty.
“I was shocked to see my car like this when I came in this morning (on Thursday). They took my car battery, radio and broke the windscreen.
“They also put a tyre underneath the car. It seems like they wanted to set it alight because they even pumped petrol from the car next to it,” Dlamini said.
A protest that turned violent where three security guards were assaulted and protesters ended up vandalising City Power premises and cars in Klipspruit, Soweto. Picture: Nhlanhla Phillips African News Agency (ANA)
He said fixing his car will cost him almost R70 000.
Another employee, Malibongwe Dzanibe said he was still trying to come to terms with what happened.
“I don’t know how much money it will cost me to fix this car. I don’t even know where to start,” he said.
The attacks followed the service delivery protest on Wednesday by hostel dwellers at Nancefield who demanded electricity connections from the entity situated next to the Eskom depot.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said: “I don’t think the residents know who supplies electricity in the area. We only install street lights in this area, Eskom supplies electricity.”
He said they were still doing assessments to determine the amount that is going to be required to fix the damage.
“What we know now is that, 15 cars were destroyed of which eight belonged to City Power and seven to the employees.
“One company taxi and two computers were stolen,” Mangena said, calling the act as criminal.
“On the video footage, it appears that they had bolt cutters. They knew exactly what they were doing. They came here armed,” he said.
Kliptown police said they were investigating a case of public violence.
Spokesperson Hitler Ngwenya said: “No one has been arrested.”