Recently, residents of Valhalla were once again left in the dark when cable thieves stole an undisclosed amount of electricity cables.
A member of the Sector 1 CPF and neighbourhood watch, Alta Smit said she and her sister were busy patrolling the streets when they received a call about cable theft in progress.
Smit said when they arrived on the scene, they discovered thieves had had time to cut enormous amounts of cables, trying to bundle them in piles before transporting them.
She said this attempted cable theft was one of the biggest so far.
“The cable thieves come into the area by jumping over the air force base wall, cut the cables and throw them back over the wall. That is how the thieves slip through our fingers,” Smit said.
She said the worst was people could not walk freely around Valhalla after dark anymore because there were no street lights. “If you turn your vehicle lights off, you are not even able to see your own hands in front of you.”
She also said they have discovered that most of the cable thefts happened between 02:00 and 4:00 in the morning when thieves expect everyone to be asleep.
“We have had three to four successes, but it seems that it is not enough. The thieves are coming back to target us. Sometimes we are kept in the dark for more than 40 hours while the electrical connections are being restored,” Smit said.
She said there were months where more than 20 cable thefts were reported.
Ward 66 councillor Ina Strijdom could not be reached for comment by the time of going to print.
In a previous interview with Rekord, Strijdom said the Tshwane metro had replaced more than 70 percent of Valhalla’s copper electricity cables with bundle conductors.
She said the metro had already spent a lot of money replacing the copper cables, but as soon as there was money available, they would continue the roll-out of bundle conductors.
“It is more economically viable in the long run,” Strijdom said.
Also read:
Three arrested for suspected cable theft
Hennops suffers from cable theft
Breakthrough against cable theft
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
