The three-year contract for guarding and patrol services is in addition to a R12-million per month contract already in place at Emfuleni Local Municipality and which has done little to stop the cable-theft plague.
Rand Water is the implementing agent on the multi-billion Vaal River project, previously described by Government as a national crisis which saw the failed interventions of the SA Army and waste water specialist ERWAT.
Premier business organisations in the Vaal – the Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) and Vereeniging Business Cooperation (VBC) – have slated both contracts as “too-little too late” and hopelessly misdirected in terms of security strategy.
Both VBC and GTCoC now want Government to declare key municipal infrastructure as National Key Points like SASOL and ArcelorMittal. GTCoC President Klippies Kritzinger and VBC MD Kevin Jackson both work closely with Policing structures in the Vaal and beyond.
But above all both want to see an intelligence-driven approach to fighting cable theft along with pro-active search and destroy tactics and not just reacting to events.
“We need to see game-changing interventions which place us on a trajectory to defeating these syndicates, not just deploying helpless guards who must always wait for the axe to fall and get paid very badly for doing so,” said both Jackson and Kritzinger.
Police have until now proved themselves incapable of handling the game-changing and ever-evolving tactics of cable theft syndicates in the Vaal – which is also a gateway to the illegal precious metals smuggling from several neighbouring provinces.
Cable theft syndicates have in recent months vastly expanded military-style operations in the Vaal – now rivalling illegal mining Zama-Zama gangs and striking with impunity despite Police and vast sums spent on traditional security.
Not only do armed syndicates strike at will, but they regularly strip refurbished plants and sub-stations almost to the day that they are repaired in many areas, especially waste water infrastructure – all of which are guarded at great cost.
Deputy Water and Sanitation Minister David Mahlobo, who oversees the entire Vaal River clean-up project, has said that he and Rand Water along with business and community stakeholders are working on an integrated and “secret” security plan.
