Cable theft is getting out of hand in the City of Mbombela
These criminals target the time that most people are sleeping, because they will not notice that the electricity is off in their household.
An estimated R3m is lost every year due to the ongoing cable theft in the City of Mbombela (CoM).
This week, despite load-shedding expected to continue until Saturday, areas like Sonheuwel were without power for around 10 hours.
“At least one can plan around load-shedding, but cable theft is crippling to small businesses,” said Linda Grimbeek, chief operational officer of the KLCBT.
“As a business chamber, we strongly condemn it, because it not only affects small businesses, but the community as a whole is affected. Bigger businesses had to spend more money on fuel to keep their generators going to keep the lights on,” she said.
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Grimbeek said even ordinary residents are affected when there are unplanned power cuts because sometimes there is not water at their houses, and they are forced to buy food, because they cannot cook. “In the process food in their refrigerators becomes spoiled.”
She added that, “Others depend on machines for their survival that need electricity, so we need to support the police in this matter so that perpetrators can be arrested.”.
The spokesperson for the CoM, Joseph Ngala, confirmed that cable theft costs it nearly R3m per year. “Cable theft is a problem nationwide. Syndicates target areas of the city to steal electrical cables to resell on the black market.”
According to Ngala, the City tries to protect such infrastructure where possible, but the thieves always devise new strategies. “However, it is the responsibility of the municipality and the members of the community to protect the infrastructure,” he said.
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Ward 15 councillor, Thea Rix, said the theft of Sonheuwel’s cables occurred between 02:00 and 03:00 on Monday. She said on March 1, 70 metres of cables had been stolen from the Riverside Precinct while on the seventh and eighth of the same month, Drum Rock and Sonheuwel’s cables had also been stolen. “These criminals target the time that most people are sleeping, because they will not notice that the electricity is off in their household. The fact that they managed to dig up the cable on the ground for more than 70 metres unnoticed shows that we do not have enough visible police in the area. These criminals are professionals, and they know that they will not get caught,” said Rix.
According to Michael Dabula of Critical Infrastructure Protection, community members are the primary security of infrastructure as it is located where they live. The government must also support them by hiring security guards to ensure that the facilities are always being cared for.
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“However, we must keep in mind that cable theft is not going away because these criminals are making a lot of money from it, and in some cases, top government officials are also benefiting. If the police can apprehend the buyers and shut down their market, cable theft will be eradicated for good,” he said.
In the case of City Mbombela, where cable theft is on the rise, the South African Critical Infrastructure Protection Act states that the municipalities must always safeguard its infrastructure by physical and electronic means wherever possible.
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