Farmers, local security companies and local SAPS, in spite of strengthened security and enhanced teamwork, are still struggling to get a handle on this problem. According to Neville Ndlala, media representative of the Greater Tzaneen Municipality, the GTM is aware of the problem. “Unfortunately the area that local SAPS has to cover is very large and that gives the criminals the opportunity to sneak in and out undetected,” Ndlala told the Herald. Local security companies, have in the past, suggested that alarms and cameras be fitted to the transformers, but according to Ndlala, the cost of this counter-measures, will make it impossible. At present, the theft of transformers is costing the Municipality a lot of money, to not even mention the lost hours of productivity in the agricultural sector. After every theft, the surrounding area suffers power failures which is also a problem for residents and other businesses in town.
Pieter Vorster, Chairman of Agri Letaba, told the Herald that this spate of thefts is cause for concern, especially for farmers in the Letsitele and Constantia areas. “It was quiet for a while, but over the course of the last week, five transformers were stolen in the area. Last month’s tally rests at over 40 stolen transformers,” Vorster told the Herald. He further stated that they (Agri Letaba) are in talks with local SAPS and the GTM with the aim of solving this problem.
According to a local farmer (who chooses to remain anonymous), closely involved with the Community Policing Forum, there are plans and strategies being put in place, although he can’t share the information on a public forum. Willem van Jaarsveld, CEO of Agri Limpopo, recently took the matter up with SAPS command structures at a provincial priority on rural safety committee meeting. Van Jaarsveld discussed both the matter of transformer thefts, as well as that of cable theft with representatives of Escom. According to Van Jaarsveld, the Escom representative was not very impressed when he was informed that the GTM does little to nothing to prevent these criminal acts and that the same goes for SAPS in apprehending the thieves responsible.
One of the main causes for concern, is that the GTM is allegedly insured for damage to transformers and thus do not really try to prevent the thefts, instead depending on the insurance companies to pay out so the stolen and broken transformers could be replaced. If the damages local businesses and farmers suffer due to unnecessary power failures is brought into the equation, this makes no sense at all.
“We are concerned about the theft of transformers, it is a serious challenge that we are facing as a municipality. We are working with law enforcement to combat this crime. We have been sending our officials to different safety and security forums to learn how best we can address this challenge. It is also important that members of the community assist us in fighting this problem. There have been suggestions that we put alarms in our transformers which will not make any economic sense since well be paying more than what we are losing. It will be a practical nightmare to equip all the transformers which are in their thousands with alarms. We, however, welcome individual clients who want to set up alarms to transformers feeding their properties or businesses, they should however do so in consultation with us,” Neville Ndlala, the GTM’s media representative, told the Herald.
The Herald has official GTM documents in its possession, showing the financial side to this problem. According to these statements, the theft of transformers have, since August 2015, cost the GTM the amount of R1,821,545.04 where the budgeted amount was only R1,639,176.71. This clearly shows that the current plans are not working and that some new thinking needs to be done.
