North of Pta ‘under siege’ by cable thieves, says councillor

The north of Pretoria is under siege by a cable theft syndicate, a local ward councillor believes.

This is as areas such as Dorandia continue to be plagued by cable theft, which extends load-shedding for residents.

“I think we are besieged by these thieves,” said ward 2 councillor Dehan Harmse.

“I believe there’s a copper cable syndicate operating in the north.”

Harmse told Rekord that the number of cable and water meter thefts in April is “staggering”.

“Thieves have stolen a huge amount of cables in April. This issue has serious repercussions in that essential infrastructure is being damaged.”

This has contributed to the regular power outages in the area, he said.

Harmse said the thieves use load-shedding and the cover of darkness to steal cables and water meters.

The local CPF is aware of the issue and is also holding patrols during load-shedding at night, according to Harmse.

“The CPF is doing everything it can to deal with this issue as they patrol daily and educate people on this.

“Another problem is that you can warn scrapyards not to buy cables that came in illegally, but unfortunately there’s always a scrapyard willing to buy it.”

Harmse urged the community to be vigilant and encouraged anyone with info to contact the Tshwane metro police’s cable theft unit.

Deputy chairperson for the Pretoria North CPF sector 2, Nikki de Jager, said they are fighting hard to fight cable theft.

“Our patrollers are on patrol every night, especially during load-shedding.

“So far our visibility is helping, but these thieves have been on the warpath as well these past months,” she said.

De Jager said they need more residents to join patrols.

“We are just not enough to cover every street in the north.

“We have patroller and community meetings every month, but we need more people to attend so that they can be aware of this issue which has been a problem for some time now.”

A university student, who resides in Dorandia, said the prolonged outages due to cable theft harmed his studies.

“We have to wait for a long time before cables can be replaced and that messes up with my studying schedule,” said Miehleketo Hlungwane.

“I think things are going to be worse now that winter is fast approaching and exams are also around the corner. It will be a problem to study while we have prolonged outages.”

The Tshwane metro police were contacted for comment but had not responded at the time of going to press.

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