/ 20 June 2007

Cable-theft epidemic wreaks havoc in SA

South Africa has no copper mines, but copper exports to China are booming: the result of a cable-theft epidemic that regularly plunges whole suburbs into darkness, strands thousands of train passengers and is wreaking havoc with the national economy.

At a crisis meeting on Tuesday with scrap-metal dealers, Cape Town mayor Helen Zille warned that the wholesale plundering of insulation cables, wires and even manhole covers threatens to bring the tourist hub ”to its knees” — a fear shared by business leaders throughout the country.

”Nobody will invest in a city if you can’t rely on something as basic as an electricity supply,” she said. ”The entire infrastructure, from sewerage substations to electricity-generating points, is being vandalised for the sake of a few bucks.”

The cable crisis is not unique to South Africa. Record prices for copper and other metals have led to an upsurge in theft and associated disruption in many other countries, ranging from the United States and Britain to Vietnam, said Rens Bindeman, a consultant advising South African authorities on how to tackle the problem.

But in South Africa — already plagued by one of the world’s highest crime rates — authorities fear it is spiralling out of control and will only worsen as the country rolls out infrastructure projects ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

South African authorities say shadowy syndicates are to blame, paying thieves to steal copper cable and other metal items such as sheeting, grids, ladders, water meters, taps and manhole covers.

Scrap dealers then melt down the metal, and there are growing signs that the finished product ends up in China, which has an insatiable appetite for raw materials.

Although the Western Cape province has no copper mines, local business leaders reported that the region exported R77-million-worth of copper to China last year.

”Some people might say that exports to China are good for the economy. They’re not. There is a huge criminal activity going on that is enormously damaging to the economy,” said Albert Schuitmaker, of Cape Town’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Costs

Nationally, it costs an estimated R500-million to replace stolen cables every year and R2,5-billion in knock-on losses, including the effects of power outages and commuters being late for work when trains do not work.

Schuitmaker cited the example of some businesses being without a fixed telephone line for six months. As soon as Telkom, the telecommunications company, came to replace the cables, they were stolen again, he said.

Electricity was restored on Tuesday to tens of thousands of households near Johannesburg after nearly a week in darkness caused by a fire at a substation — believed to be the result of cable theft. The poor Cape Town suburb of Manenberg was also without electricity for three days recently because of cable theft, in a pattern regularly repeated across the country.

Cape Town mayor Zille cited the example of a home run by nuns for terminally ill children that recently spent R500 000 on a generator — rather than improved care for the children — because of recurrent power cuts.

The Business against Crime coalition wants cable theft to be classed as ”sabotage”, which would incur stiff jail sentences rather than the relatively light penalties as is currently the case.

In Cape Town, which has a chronic drug problem, the thieves are often drug addicts desperate to finance their next fix, said Zille.

A 15-year-old boy survived being electrocuted — the second time in a year — but had his face badly scarred and his hands permanently disfigured when he tried to steal copper from an electricity cable. ”This boy risked his body being burned to a crisp because he was under the influence of drugs,” said Zille. — Sapa-AP