{"id":26973,"date":"2012-11-20T15:17:27","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T13:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=26973"},"modified":"2012-11-21T16:23:21","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T14:23:21","slug":"sa-losing-r5-billion-a-year-to-cable-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/26973\/sa-losing-r5-billion-a-year-to-cable-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"SA losing R5 billion a year to cable theft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cable theft costs South Africa about R5 billion a year, and the “war on cable theft” is being intensified, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa<\/a> said on Tuesday (20 November 2012).<\/p>\n

In written reply to a parliamentary question, he said training for designated “second-hand goods” police officers was currently underway.<\/p>\n

This would ensure that police not only arrested those who broke the law, but also secured harsher convictions in court.<\/p>\n

“Cable theft should be viewed as a serious crime which has potential to negatively impact our economic growth as a country. We cannot allow that, hence our declaration of war on izinyoka (cable thieves),” he said.<\/p>\n

The incidents reported often involved theft from Spoornet<\/a> of utility metres and cabling, theft of municipal metres and cabling, theft of cables and transformers from Eskom<\/a>, as well as cases of theft of wire from private farms.<\/p>\n

These cases were difficult to address unless the suspect was caught in the act or there were witnesses.<\/p>\n

“However, there is now a closer scrutiny of second-hand metal dealers and intensified investigations by our detective division and, where applicable, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations, otherwise known as the Hawks,” Mthethwa said.<\/p>\n

Among the measures currently being implemented by the SA Police Service to address cable theft, were crime prevention patrols and engagements with role-players through formal structures.<\/p>\n

To this end, a non-ferrous metals committee had been established at national level involving both business and government departments.<\/p>\n

In May this year, the Second-Hand Goods Act had come into effect.<\/p>\n

In essence, the act stipulates that any person buying stolen goods, including cables, is as guilty as the person who stole the goods. If an unscrupulous dealer is found guilty, a court could impose a prison sentence of up to 10 years.<\/p>\n

The act also makes specific provisions for accrediting the industry dealers and associations, and compliance monitoring. Stolen metals include copper cables, piping, bolts, and manhole covers.<\/p>\n

Such theft continuously disrupted and degraded services, including the rail transport system, the power supply provided by Eskom, and Telkom<\/a>‘s telecommunication services, Mthethwa said.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

Copper theft down for September<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Copper theft decreased in August<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Copper theft up in July \u2013 Sacci<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cable theft: what is being done<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cable theft effect: you\u2019ll be surprised<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cable theft costs South Africa about R5 billion a year, and the “war on cable theft” is being intensified, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,1741],"class_list":["post-26973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-active","tag-copper-theft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26973"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26980,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26973\/revisions\/26980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}