SOWETO residents are not happy and gatvol with the cable theft in their community.
Dube residents said their community has experienced more than 15 incidents of cable theft in Ward 38 over the past two weeks, causing distress this festive season.
Residents said izinyoka do as they please while they sleep, stealing copper cables and leaving them in the dark.
So, the gatvol residents took the matter into their own hands and beat up cable theft suspects when they were caught in action.
Resident and patroller, Lucky Makhoba, told Daily Sun the suspects are allegedly nyaope addicts.
“This is an escalating problem. These boys are targeting our area to steal cables. Some of them are from White City,” he said.
He said on Thursday, 28 December, they caught a man from Orlando West attempting to steal cables and the community dealt with him decisively.
When caught, the suspect revealed that 10 of them were going around stealing cables and he also revealed that they were from Orlando West.
The community is now coming up with solutions to deal with the issue. They said they are working towards drafting a letter to Eskom asking for a change to more secure cable materials other than copper, given the persistent threat of theft.
“Eskom must allocate security to our communities to safeguard its infrastructure and support the efforts of patrollers. Community safety patrollers are using their own personal cars and currently rely on resident volunteers using personal cars to identify suspects. We need to strengthen the relationship between Eskom, SAPS cable theft investigators and patrollers to dismantle syndicates,” said a resident.
ALSO READ | Toilet 'stops' broer from helping dying brother
Another resident said they need to advocate for increased police visibility and alert the Department of Community Safety about these ongoing issues.
“Eskom should hire additional technicians for quicker electricity restoration, preventing residents from falling victim to unauthorised individuals claiming to restore electricity without proper documentation,” said the resident.
Another patroller, Nhlanhla Xaba, said they're grateful to the patrollers who are on the battle lines taking this challenge head-on.
“We are working towards having more patrollers on the ground to ensure this issue is dealt with quickly,” he said.
When Daily Sun called Eskom, spokeswoman Amanda Qithi asked for a reference number to help follow up on the enquiry.
However, she had not come back to Daily Sun at the time of publishing.
