R15m worth of stolen cable gets a mere R400k on black market

The power outage in the Johannesburg CBD, which cost business owners millions of rands over the past week, was all because of a comparatively small amount: R400 000 – the estimated black market value of electrical cables worth R15 million that were stolen.

Thieves got into underground electrical service tunnels and hacked out electrical cables on Sunday. Residents and business were assured the outage would be resolved in a matter of hours – but that turned into days and then weeks.

“Cable theft is something the city takes seriously in light of the infrastructure backlog we already have,” said the City of Joburg in a tweet last week.

Sol Masolo, spokesperson for City Power, told The Citizen repairing cables was not as easy as stealing them.

“The criminals do not just steal the cables. They have to set the cables on fire first to stop the electricity flow.”

Although the city had to replace about 32km of cable this does not mean 32km of the cable was stolen, Masolo said.

“They could have stolen just 30cm, but to steal, they need to burn the cable – and the plastic surrounding the cable keeps burning, causing more damage to the cables and tunnels.”

After replacing the cables – which weigh five tons per 300 metres – they need to be connected by specialists to ensure that the entire 32km actually works.

“Even if something is new, it doesn’t mean it is going to work,” said Masolo.

The cables have been dragged down the tunnels by a team of workers for about 32km. They then needed to be lifted off the ground and hung on the wall away from the floor of the tunnels.

This is physically exhausting – and the workers have been working around the clock to get the job done.

The City of Joburg last year lost between R30 million and R40 million worth of cables due to theft. Masolo said the city would educate the community about cable theft.

The city has also deployed security and partnered with the the Johannesburg Metro Police Department and the South African Police Service on a national level because “this is a national problem; it doesn’t happen in Johannesburg only”, said Masolo.

A total of 22 people have been arrested in connection with the cable theft – most of them foreign nationals who did not have valid documents, said Masolo. – ofentsem@citizen.co.za