Two inquest cases have been opened at Witbank Police station and the cases will be investigated.
On Sunday evening, April 24 at approximately 22:38 police officials on duty received a call about an incident on a mine in the eMalahleni area.
When the police officials arrived they found a suspect who was trying to cut an electrical cable. The suspect was then electrocuted by the cable which he was cutting and died on the scene.
Up to the end of March this year, seven people have been electrocuted.
“Cable theft endangers the lives of innocent, hard- working men and -women threatening their livelihoods. The incident will have a negative impact on productivity, job security and the industry at large considering that cable theft has a devastating effect on the economy, resulting in indirect costs estimated at over R5 billion a year,” said Mr Kalagedi Manganese chairperson from Daphne Mashile-Nkosi.
In June, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (SACCI) Copper Theft Barometer indicated that copper theft has increased to R13.6-million from R12.6-million between March and April 2015.
SACCI communications officer Tshidi Maotshe said the figure was a drop in the ocean when taking into account the impact on the economy.
“Recent estimates put the loss between R5 and R7 billion a year,” she said.
The barometer is based on theft from Eskom, Telkom and Transnet, and it calculates only the cost of replacing the metal. Maotshe said the copper theft volume indicator increased to 179 metric tonnes in April 2015 from 173 metric tonnes in March 2015.
In 2012 the Mpumalanga police were investigating how a group of men got into Xstrata’s coal mine in eMalahleni and stole copper cables.
Miners were underground when they saw the alleged thieves, the police and the mine said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The group [of miners] was chased by the alleged perpetrators and trapped inside an underground refuge chamber.”
Police and Xstrata coal management were investigating.
They value of the cable stolen had not been determined yet. Operations were not affected because the area where the cables were stolen from had been decommissioned.
On Thursday, April 21 approximately 15:20 at Mpungwe Government Hospital a 10 month old baby died.
A mother arrived at the hospital with her baby in her arms, the doctors and nurses took the child from the mother and they started working on her.
The baby suffocated as the baby choked on a fat cake, poisoning is been investigated by the police.
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