Daily News: ‘No one can have it if we can’t’

Note how this article conflates community connections and copper cable theft – two completely different things….and how threats from above are normalized while a threat from below, with a clearly spelled out logic, is ‘bizarre’…

http://www.dailynews.co.za/?fSectionId=&fArticleId=vn20080820111834480C857906

‘No one can have it if we can’t’
20 August 2008, 12:14

By Heinz de Boer

“If you remove our cables, you had better move all the power from the area. No-one can have it if we are not allowed to (have electricity).”

This is part of a bizarre threat made to the city after vandals destroyed a mini substation and totally blacked out a large part of Sea Cow Lake from Friday. The electricity supply was restored on Tuesday.

A note was left behind holding the city to ransom and threatening more of the same if the city clamped down on illegal connections and cable theft.

Durban Electricity deputy head Roy Wienand on Tuesday confirmed a major act of sabotage in the Sea Cow Lake region, saying vandals blacked out a large area after tampering with the equipment.

Although the financial implications of the sabotage are still being calculated, a single mini substation is conservatively valued at R100 000.

Wienand said the note threatened that the same would happen if the council did not allow illegal connections to remain. He said theft would, however, continue until the socio-economic conditions behind the thefts were eradicated.

“There is generally rampant theft of electricity and illegal connections in the Sea Cow Lake area. As fast as we replace these cables they are stolen again. But unless we police 24 hours a day it will happen. Wherever there are informal settlements where poor people have not been provided with electricity the temptation to connect illegally is often too great for some,” he said.

Then there are the professional thieves who have made the wholesale theft of major electrical lines their business. Armed with chainsaws, the gangs often target rural or desolate areas where cables run.

Several private security cars were on standby at the Sea Cow Lake site on Tuesday morning as Durban Electricity workers and private contractors replaced cables and switching gear. It is understood that two transformers also had to be replaced.

The incident is only one in the bigger picture of copper cable and electricity theft, which is costing ratepayers millions each year. Wienand confirmed that about 2 percent or R30-million of all electricity bought from Eskom is stolen annually.

This figure doubles when labour costs and equipment is factored in.

Recently thieves caused a pylon at Isipingo to collapse after the mounting bolts on its four legs were removed. Three men were arrested after the incident.

The city had to fork out R2-million for the new overhead pylon. The cost to businesses in the South Durban region from this incident alone has been estimated at between R50-million and R100-million.

Durban is now looking at forming an elite anti-theft unit, following the example of the Cape “Copper Heads”.

“Ultimately, the only way to solve electricity theft is to provide everyone with power in their homes. But we are improving our patrols and will definitely not sit on our hands and do nothing. But unfortunately as Cape Town has success with these gangs, they will move up the coast, and as we have success they will move to other areas. Arrests are the only way of stopping it. We will definitely curb it,” Wienand said.

Members of the public who spot suspicious contractors or people tampering with lines can call 031 311 9611.

* This article was originally published on page 1 of The Daily News on August 20, 2008