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Stolen cables.
Residents of Olievenhoutbosch and surrounding areas in Pretoria have endured a bleak Christmas. They have been without electricity for three days now. This follows a fire incident at the Olievenhoutbosch substation on Wednesday.
The cause of the fire is due to cable theft and vandalism of the power infrastructure. Other affected areas include Zwartkop, Highveld and Eco Park.
City of Tshwane technicians continue with repair work.
Residents say the power outage has severely impacted them.
Update on restoration of the Olievenhoutbosch Substation pic.twitter.com/7Xgml3EvlM
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) December 27, 2025
“We all expecting to enjoy Christmas with the lights on, but unfortunately it became something which is totally different from what we were expecting. The fridges are de-freezing and the meat is getting rotten,” says a resident.
“My business was really affected, because we work from home. I am a graphic designer, I work with my laptop so for now my computers are off and I don’t have a backup for this electricity. From the date up until today, I lost about eight clients,” says another resident.
#PowerUpdate: Olievenhoutbosch Substation
Team busy attending. pic.twitter.com/dTe7QL5OFh
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) December 25, 2025
The ward councilor in the area, Kenneth Masha, says more patrollers are needed to fight the continuous cable theft and vandalism.
“In 2023 due to the work that was done by the patrollers we had zero incidents of cable theft. However, with lack of support from the city, the number of patrollers started dwindling down, to an extent that now we don’t have enough patrollers. That is why the opportunistic criminals have identified,” says Masha.
City of Tshwane says there’s been measurable progress in the repair work being undertaken at the affected substation.
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