The scourge of cable theft, which City Power says is responsible for 40 percent of outages in Joburg, will come under the spotlight during the Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities convention.
The theme of this year’s convention, hosted by the City of Joburg from 6 to 8 October, is Moving towards Southern Africa’s electricity networks of the future. It will focus on cable theft, tariffs/pricing, smart metering, embedded generation, and the impact of the new health and safety (construction) regulations on municipal and design electrical engineers.
The convention will include a roundtable discussion titled, Smashing infrastructure and components theft syndicates: Should cable theft be classified as economic sabotage?
The roundtable panellists will include representatives of The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, City of Joburg, CBI Electric, City Power, the police and Metalco Recycling.
Speaking at the opening of the convention, Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Andries Nel said cable theft had very destructive effects including entire industries being brought to a standstill, which in turn impacted production, the economy, employment and public resources.
“To replace that cable, takes municipal workers away from developing more infrastructure in order to replace that which we had… they tell me that to replace that length of cable [50 to 100m] is going to cost easily R1 million to R2 million, that’s public money that’s gone to waste,” he said.
However, cable theft, illegal connections and theft of electricity was not only a problem among the poor, he said. Referring to the collusion between big businesses and municipal officials in Joburg which was uncovered this year, Nel said the city council incurred revenue losses amounting to R200 million.
Sicelo Xulu, managing director of City Power said the convention formed part of concerted efforts by the industry to clamp down on cable theft.
“This convention will gather all the stakeholders in the industry who will deliberate and formulate strategies on how to deal with cable theft more decisively,” he said.
“Cable theft costs the economy in excess of R5 billion a year. The pervasive nature of cable theft and infrastructure vandalism requires the industry to redouble its efforts and to put plans into action as a matter of urgency.”
Xulu was confident that the convention would produce a “concrete and firm” action plan that would define the way forward to tackle cable theft and other energy-related issues.
The association is made up of municipal and national electricity distributors, parastatals, and commercial, academic and other organisations that have a direct interest in the electricity supply industry in Southern Africa.
