Since the beginning of the year, there have been very few days when the electricity was not down some-where in the municipal area due to the scourge of cable theft. During February, for instance, residents of Welverdiend had no electricity for three weeks; some areas experienced outages for more than a month. This month, streets on the western side of Carletonville, like Bloukrans Street, seem to be the worst affected by cable theft. In the past week alone, residents in Dolomite, Nitre, Agnew, Gypsum, Carbon, Tafelberg, Bloukrans, Ada and Amosite streets in Carletonville and several streets in Fochville and Welverdiend were affected by cable theft.
The Carletonville Mall, for instance, has been without electricity for more than a week and a half.
“The electricity went off on Saturday, 2 April, because thieves damaged a cable at the Bloukrans substation. Many of the businesses in the mall do not have generators, which means they have to close when there is no electricity. But even those with generators suffer because the high cost of diesel to fuel the generators eats up all their profits,” laments the mall’s manager, Mr Eugene Rooibaatjie. He noted that cable theft affects not only businesses but the whole community. Should employees at some of the businesses in the mall lose their jobs because of the crippling electricity problems, between 50 and 100 families could lose their breadwinners. According to Rooibaatjie, the Merafong City Local Municipality has tried to help the mall by installing overhead electrical cables.
Not even this deters cable thieves, however. On Tuesday night, armed cable thieves targeted the substation in Bloukrans Street again. They cut some cables from the current repairs. Fortunately, the police, Mabotwane security company’s response unit and security guards from Gladiator drove them off.
Due to the ongoing problems, the DA has started a petition for residents unhappy with the current conditions. According to Ms Ina Cilliers of the DA, some of the party’s councillors raised questions on the matter during an IDP workshop this week. Among other things, it emerged that municipal officials had not reported any cable theft cases to the SAPS and, therefore, no case numbers exist. On the one hand, the officials lament the time and administrative burden of reporting a case. It often requires an entire morning at the SAPS. The officials say they cannot spare the time. However, if no case is reported and no case number exists, there is no mandate for the SAPS to investigate these cases. No investigations, no arrests, no convictions. In the absence of a case number, Merafong cannot institute an insurance claim. In effect, residents pay twice for each cable theft. Once, by proxy, for the insurance premium, and then a second time because the replacement cost of the cable cannot be claimed from insurance. It is, therefore, paid from the municipal coffers. Cilliers says she will ask formal written questions in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) to determine each cable theft case number, the status of the investigation, and arrest and conviction rates.
“Residents of Merafong are urged to remain vigilant and report any suspicious behaviour to the police and their local CPF groups without fail. Let’s work together to keep Merafong safe,” she says.
Meanwhile, the municipality also responded to questions about the latest cable theft.
“The municipality is currently working on the matter and will use overhead lines going forward. The power would be back by the end of the week,” the spokesperson said on Tuesday.
According to the Second-Hand Goods Act, No 6 0f 2009, copper, aluminium, zinc, chrome, lead, white metals, nickel, tungsten, tin, lead, ferrosilicon, ferrochrome, brass, bronze, cobalt, ferrovanadium and precious metals as defined in the Precious Metals Act 27 of 2005, are considered controlled metals that scrap metal dealers may not buy or sell. “Unfortunately, we know that many dealers do not buy or store these metals at their normal premises because they know this would get them arrested,” a police member told the Herald this week. Anyone with information on where cable thieves are selling their loot and where it is hidden should contact Col Wessel Prinsloo at 082 463 0236.
