Thieves sentenced to 27 years in prison for stealing Eskom cables

Two thieves have been sentenced to a total of 27 years behind bars for stealing more than 4km of Eskom’s aluminium cables, five years after they were arrested.

Anye Valentine Nkwenti was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, while Happy Dube will spend 12 years behind bars after they were found guilty in the Bronkhorstspruit Regional Court.

The duo were handcuffed at Ystervarkfontein in the Welbekend area in 2018 while trying to flee in a vehicle that was later impounded.

Police also found two wood saws and one hack saw on the crime scene, believed to have been used in the perpetration of the offence.

Eskom said the theft of cables, overhead lines, transformers and conductors costs the parastatal approximately R2 billion a year.

“Illegal electricity connections and cable theft often lead to prolonged power outages and compromises the quality of supply, which affects businesses, essential services, as well as the day-to-day lives of society, and this has a negative impact on the economy.”

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Kith Maitisa, Eskom’s SHEQS Manager in Gauteng, welcomed the convictions and expressed appreciation for the cooperation between the Eskom employees, the security company and SAPS for apprehending the criminals.

“Gauteng experiences a lot of cable theft and vandalism of electricity infrastructure. The arrests are part of our heightened efforts to curb criminal acts that affect customers, disrupt people’s livelihoods and the future of the country.”

Maitisa urged all those who may be aware of any form of criminal acts to report them by calling the Eskom Crime Line or the South African Police Services (SAPS).

Meanwhile, Eskom said load shedding will revert back to stage 3 from 5pm until 10pm on Tuesday.

According to the parastatal, the rest of the week will see load shedding implemented at stage 2.

Eskom ramped up the level of load shedding from stage 3 to stage 4 on Monday due to further loss in generating capacity.

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