Carletonville residents are concerned that the municipality is again making things very easy for cable thieves.Numerous residents complained that cable thieves seemed more active again last weekend.

On the night of Saturday, 6 April, they stole a cable on Soutpansberg Street in Carletonville Extension 16. The criminals dug the cable up on the sidewalk near the Bloukrans Street corner. Despite pleas to the municipality from the residents and ward councillor, Mr Carlos Rebelo, the ditch where the thieves had dug up the cable next to a high wall opposite Wonderfontein High School was still open on Monday afternoon.

Residents feared that the open ditch might cause the cable thieves to return to steal more cable, or that children can get shocked by the open wires. Meanwhile, residents also saw that cable thieves had started digging up the sidewalks on both sides at the corner of Coronation- and Station Streets in Carletonville.

“We tried to close it ourselves so people do not stumble into it,” one of the hawkers who sells vegetables at the corner said on Monday afternoon.
The newspaper contacted the municipality about the problems, and they promised to close the ditches by the end of the week.