Residents in 9th Street in Linden are in the dark more times than not because of the increase of cable thefts in their street.
People who reside along this road have been targeted numerous times by these opportunistic thieves – five incidents have been logged for May and two incidents have occurred in June already.
Resident Trevor Edmunds explained the first incident took place on 2 June at 3am and again the same time the next day on 3 June.
Another resident Sue McKenzie said that she saw an explosion on 3 June just after the incident occurred. “The problem now is that the entire area has an electric current flowing through it, as we are all getting shocks if we touch any metal bits like taps or the metal bars of car-ports. Something needs to be done.”
Linden Police spokesperson Captain Alex Vermaak said the problem is that these perpetrators know that vehicles are approaching long before they can be spotted, and then they hide away in bushes as Linden is an area filled with thick vegetation. “We went on an operation on 28 May with City Power in an effort to try and locate these perpetrators but we found nothing.”
He added that these criminals are changing their cable theft patterns as they are not hitting the streets at the start of the week opposed to the weekends as was the case of many of the incidents in May.
“The only solution now is for City Power to roll out the Aerial Bundle Conductors (ABC) in this area to stop cable theft from occurring on a frequent basis. It is also very expensive to do this and I suspect that is why it’s taking the City so long to roll out these replacement cables,” added Vermaak.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Matshidiso Mfikoe explained that R60 million will be spent on the ABC roll-out project in Joburg.
She said, “The ABC conductors are made of aluminium encased in a PVC cover that is extremely tough – they are of less value to the thieves and this will dramatically reduce the incidents in the area.”
Mfikoe explained that some of the areas that have already received the new ABC cables are Westdene and Melville but it still needs to be implemented in areas like Darrenwood, Linden, Cresta and Blairgowrie. She was unable to comment on when Linden will receive the new ABC Cables.
Related story: Police investigate 9th Street cable theft
