The Midrand Sector 1 Crime Forum is on high alert and working tirelessly with local authorities and security companies to mitigate cable theft in the area.
This comes after the theft of cables from an electrical pole in Glen Austin which affected four properties including the Midrand SPCA.
According to the SPCA general manager, Pam Pretorius, the theft took place on the evening of April 17 during load-shedding.
After experiencing a cable fault on February 18, the SPCA recently got power on March 18 and is yet to recover the cost of the outage.
“Having been without power for about five weeks, and now experiencing cable theft is devastating. We were out of power again from Monday [April 17] to Tuesday [April 18] until 16:00,” said Pretorius.
“We had to run the generators again, which we couldn’t afford since we spent all our savings on the last outage. We also had to cancel our theatre because we could not sterilise our theatre instruments.”
Pretorius said between load-shedding and cable theft residents are extremely frustrated.
“It is a security risk and affects people working from home, who cannot charge laptops etc. This can only cause small businesses to close and, I am sure, job losses,” she added.
Despite Eskom sending a team to fix the power outage, Jonathan Burrows, chairperson of the Crime Forum, said this prompted patrols and visible policing to work even harder.
“The theft of cable and switches from electrical boxes causes a lot of stress for residents not just in terms of their security being compromised but also, the waste of food which costs money. Unable to do the basics of everyday life, which is very upsetting and demoralizing for the residents,” said Burrows.
“Any tampering or loss of connections needs to be reported via WhatsApp groups so that we know where it is happening to increase patrols and visibility.”
Details: To join the Sector 1 Crime Forum residents can contact Jonathan Burrows on 082 551 1580
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