Five Emfuleni employees were arrested in Vanderbijlpark on Friday, 21 August 2026, over an alleged scheme to reconnect disconnected electricity supplies in exchange for payments into their own bank accounts.
The five were attached to the Revenue and Electrical departments of Emfuleni Local Municipality in Gauteng, and were detained during a takedown operation carried out by the Gauteng Political Killings Task Team (PKTT), as reported by IOL.
Their names were not released.
What the arrested Emfuleni employees allegedly did
National police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe set out the allegations against the group, describing a pattern in which the five presented themselves to municipal customers as officials with the authority to restore supply that had been cut off. Mathe said:
“Preliminary investigations have established that the suspects allegedly operated a scheme in which they misrepresented themselves to municipal clients as duly authorised officials who could reconnect electricity supplies that had been disconnected by the municipality.”
Clients were then allegedly instructed to pay varying amounts directly into the suspects’ bank accounts in exchange for the illegal reconnection of electricity.
The sums were alleged to have varied from one customer to the next rather than following any set municipal tariff.
How the alleged scheme cost the municipality
Mathe said the suspects were also alleged to have reconnected electricity supplies without municipal authorisation.
That, she said, produced illegal consumption on the network and financial losses for Emfuleni Local Municipality, which had disconnected the properties in the first place.
Disconnection was the municipality’s principal recovery tool against unpaid accounts, and an unauthorised reconnection removed it. Power kept flowing to a property the municipality believed it had cut off, while the outstanding debt stayed unpaid on the books and the consumption went unbilled.
The five faced allegations of fraud, theft and tampering with essential infrastructure.
None had entered a plea or been convicted of any offence at the point the arrests were confirmed, and the police statement described the findings against them as preliminary.
Where the case against the Emfuleni employees stood
Mathe framed the operation as part of a broader push against officials accused of turning municipal positions into private income, and pointed to the task team’s continuing work with other bodies in the province. She said:
“The Gauteng PKTT will continue to work with relevant stakeholders to ensure that those who abuse their positions for personal financial gain are held accountable.”
The investigation had not closed with the five arrests. Mathe indicated that the case remained open and that the task team expected to detain further people in connection with the same alleged scheme at the municipality. She added:
“The investigation remains ongoing, and further arrests are anticipated.”
The five suspects were due to make their first court appearance on Monday, 24 August 2026, when the state would begin setting out its case and the question of bail would be decided.
Any further arrests signalled by the task team hinged on what the continuing investigation turned up after that hearing.
