Power schedules - to cable thieves advantage

By Rhodé Marshall
29 January 2008

The City of Cape Town’s Cable Theft task team says that thieves are taking advantage of scheduled power cuts to steal increasing amounts of copper cable because they are able to know when and where power cuts are going to occur.

“We’ve seen a move recently that the thieves actually target the bigger cables that carries more voltage. These are cables that are usually life threatening to steal,” says Pieter van Dalen – chairperson of the task team.

Van Dalen says the task team has made 106 arrests in the last six months. Just last week they recovered 102kg of stolen copper cable from a scrapyard in Lansdowne.

“When the power is off, thieves cash in on it and target those cables. The copper cables are thick and they get more money for shorter pieces of cable,” says van Dalen.

Anyone who wishes to report cable theft can call the City of Cape Town’s 24-hour toll-free number 0800 222 771.