Zuma proposes tougher law for cable theft
President Jacob Zuma calls for stricter consequences for cable theft.
Gopolang Chawane
Harsher punishment for crimes such as cable theft is proposed in a new bill before Parliament.
It provides for a prison term of up 30 years for the culprits.
The Criminal Matters Amendment Bill makes it an offence to tamper with, damage or destroy essential infrastructure which may interfere with the provision of basic services to the public.
President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday criminal acts such as cable theft caused serious disruptions to the public.
“People actually steal and destroy because they want to sell this (copper wires) on a bigger scale. We now need to categorise it at a higher level,” said Zuma.
Zuma was speaking after the presidential infrastructure co-ordinating commission meeting in Tuynhuys, Cape Town.
He said the theft of copper cables and metal had become a business.
The bill provided for stricter bail conditions and imposed a maximum jail term of 30 years, said Zuma.
Cable theft has been a problem in and around Pretoria, the latest power outage in Centurion on Thursday, was related to cable theft.
In a statement issued by the Tshwane metro, an explosion at the Eldoraigne substation in the early hours of Thursday, followed the theft of cables and other electricity components.
DA ward 69 councillor Marietha Aucamp said the repair team experienced difficulty fixing one of the rigs at the substation which delayed the restoration of power.
Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo warned residents to treat power lines and connections in their homes as live during an outage.
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