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WATCH: Armed gangs stripping Reiger Park of cables

The brazen pillaging of the infrastructure happens day and night, in full view of the public and the police.

January 27, 2023

Fanie Mthupha 3 minutes read

According to residents the theft of the power infrastructure reportedly happens day and night, and in full view of the public and the police.

‘Heavily armed’ criminal gangs are gradually stripping the city’s energy infrastructure with apparent impunity in Reiger Park.

Many residents told the Boksburg Advertiser that police and the energy department have a lackadaisical approach to protecting the infrastructure and that the daily theft is often happening in full view of authorities.

Cable theft has long been a problem in the area, though now the perpetrators have taken it to crisis proportions and no one is held accountable, the concerned residents said.
Apparently, a group of heavily armed criminals pillage copper cables from the power network in Reiger Park almost every day.
Even underground cables in the vicinity of the Reiger Park Police Station were not spared.

The high-voltage cables are dug up and typically cut into smaller pieces to be carried out, plunging the community into darkness.

Residents claim that they have had several meetings with police management and were told the station is not resourced to deal with the heavily armed thugs.
It’s also alleged that the police insisted that the protection of the city’s infrastructure is the responsibility of the metro, not the SAPS.

No comment
The Reiger Park SAPS spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
However, we asked the newly appointed Reiger Park SAPS station commander Lieutenant Colonel Bongani Dube what efforts are being made to stop the looting of essential infrastructure, including that of a cable outside the police station.
He, however, declined to respond to our questions, stating he doesn’t speak to the media.

Large-scale damage
The Advertiser visited the area on January 25 and saw the devastation caused by thieves to a cable feeding power from a substation through the veld and the streets to the residential area and public facilities.

FILE PHOTO: Eskom’s Central Vertical substation which supplies power to Reiger Park and surrounding areas.

It appeared that by this stage the city had already lost about two kilometres of cables as a result of the constant thefts.
Criminals had already dug up underground high-voltage power cables, from the main substation in the veld between Elsburg and St Anthony’s to Leon Ferreira Avenue.

Residents likened walking into the area to stumbling on a construction site as a result of cables being dug up.

Also Read: Task team established to police essential infrastructure

The mass-scale thievery has left the roadside between these two areas riddled with open trenches.
Other facilities along the route, including schools, community centres, and municipal properties, have had their perimeter fencing damaged, apparently when the gangs dug up the trenches to steal the cable.
The pavement has also been dug up and damaged.

The blocks on the pavement were dug up to gain access to the electric copper cables running beneath.

The power network from the nearby substation near St Anthony’s Road has been almost completely stripped of its underground copper cables.

Residents believe that poor security and policing have made it easy for criminals to destroy their infrastructure, turning the area into a hotbed for the heft of power cables.

According to a resident Leonard Jansen, who also serves as treasurer at the affected Reiger Park Centre for People with Disabilities, the theft of the power infrastructure reportedly happens day and night, and in full view of the public and the police.

The blocks on the pavement were dug up to gain access to the electric copper cables.

Residents are calling on the police to clamp down on the plundering of infrastructure, which is crippling the township economy and plunging residents into darkness.

War
Resident Leonard Jansen, who is also the treasurer at the Reiger Park Centre for People with Disabilities, said these continued attacks on the power network are nothing short of a war.

Resident Leonard Jansen, of the nearby Reiger Park Centre for People with Disabilities, shows the Advertiser the extent of the damages caused by the cable thieves to the power infrastructure.

“We are clearly in a war. The police told us there is nothing there can do to stop the looting as they are not equipped enough to face the heavily armed perpetrators, believed to be a group of foreign nationals from Joe Slovo,” he said.

Jansen pointed out that a group of community members also tried in vain to protect the power network, but the heavily armed gangs opened fire on the community patrollers and a community member was shot and injured in the encounter.
“This also puts our lives in danger because residents who use the streets at night get shot at by the thieves. The thieves also opened fire on the police patrol vans, which shows how brazen and heavily armed the cable theft syndicate is.”

Urgent intervention
Elaine Appies, of the Reiger Park Community Crisis Centre, said the stripping of the critical infrastructure has reached massive proportions and requires urgent and coordinated intervention by the metro and the SAPS.

Elaine Appies of the Community Crisis Centre shows the Advertiser the extent of the damages caused by the cable thieves to the fence and the power infrastructure.

Appies said they are left without power for days or even weeks as a result of the frequent cable theft.
“The consistent stripping of our critical infrastructure by these armed gangs is becoming a major worry for the community.

“Given the rate of theft and destruction of the infrastructure, if these syndicates are not stopped now the theft will continue till there is nothing left of our electricity network.
“I find it hard to understand how government can allow its essential infrastructure to be completely destroyed like this,” she said.

While many residents have taken to social media to highlight the extent of the pillaging and destruction, there have been those who were seen trying to scavenge some of the pieces of cables the armed robbers left behind.

While at the scene on Wednesday afternoon, some community members in the videos told this journalist that, due to the government’s lackadaisical approach to protect the infrastructure, they have taken it upon themselves to uproot some of the exposed copper cables left by the thieves, and take it to the police station for safekeeping.

Ward 32 councillor Marius de Vos said this criminal activity started last year at the substation in Reiger Park.
“I thought they will skip the stretch past the police station but these criminals dug up the cable yesterday in full view of the powerless police. A large contingent of public order police |(POPS) was also deployed last night to prevent this scourge.
“People are not scared of POPS anymore,” said De Vos.

The Advertiser is awaiting comment from Ekurhuleni metro.