Johannesburg power supplier City Power has called on the government to make copper a precious metal in order to minimise theft of power cables, spokesperson Silas Mzingeli Zimu said on Wednesday.
City Power also urged government to increase the penalties given to cable thieves to 20 years in prison, he told a media briefing in Johannesburg.
“One year or six months is not going to do anything to prevent incidents of theft. They will just come back and do the same thing,” Zimu said.
“The impact that has on the economy is very bad.”
The penalty for copper theft is significantly lower than for the theft of precious metals, Zimu said.
“People won’t go and steal diamonds like they steal copper,” he said.
“There are too many people who are stealing copper because they know that they will get away with it.”
In April alone there were 38 planned and 122 unplanned outages around Johannesburg, Zimu said.
Of those unplanned outages, 37% were caused by theft and vandalism.
Zimu said City Power would be introducing a fault logging facility on its website for the World Cup as well as an emergency number for information regarding “proper emergencies” such as fires, theft or vandalism.
“One of the biggest enemies to the World Cup is theft and vandalism.” –Sapa