Umlazi SAPS urges community to blow the whistle on cable theft

Power outages are a huge inconvenience in our community, already we are faced with load shedding every now and again but cable theft shouldn’t be another reason for power outages. Cable theft refers to two things which is metal theft which is theft of the physical electrical cable for its scrap metal and cable television theft which is a form of copyright infringement which provides free subscription television. There are also cases where people are paid to do illegal connections of electricity, this becomes a fatal practice as some of these illegal connection can cost lives of others, because live wires are left uncovered.
Cable theft is an illegal practice which falls under theft. This practice is against the law and anyone caught stealing a cable can be arrested and charged with theft, which he/she may be liable to serve jail time or pay a fine. Umlazi SAPS would like to remind the community that cable theft is an issue that affects the community as a whole, because due to cable theft we end up experiencing power outages, which means the robots do not work, trains get delayed we become late for work and we can’t even charge our phones which we use to set alarms, which help us wake up in the morning.
Although cable theft is a problem but Umlazi SAPS members try their best to eliminate this problem, by doing random visits to scrap yards to check if they are not purchasing any on the stolen cables for cooper, because there is a market for cooper at scrap yards, by doing crime awareness programmes at identified hot spot areas and also schools are visited to sensitize learners about cable theft, to encourage them to report anyone involved in this criminal activity.
Constable Sithobile Nyoni of Umlazi SAPS Communications office said “It is everyone’s duty to report cable theft and that people should also be on the lookout for people who are imposter’s, these are people who pretend to be working for the Municipality usually very early in the morning or late at night, she said is they suspect any criminal activity related to cable theft they can phone 080 13 13 111 or phone the police on 08600 10111”