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The Democratic Alliance (DA) wants a probe into extensive cable theft taking place in the Sol Plaatje municipality.

This comes after a routine oversight inspection by myself and DA Cllr George Joseph, to investigate power outages in the Kimdustria area, uncovered a massive cable heist operation, in the veld behind Kimberley’s industrial area. See pics here, here, here, hereand here.

At least three kilometres worth of 80mm cable has been dug out of the ground. Thieves had to dig trenches of between one to one and half meters deep, to access the cable. This means that the criminal operation has been extensive, with many hands and many hours involved. In addition to electrical cables being stolen, fibre optic cables have also been snatched. Even light poles were cut down, to strip them of their cable.

According to people residing in an informal area bordering on the veld where the theft has occurred, massive groups of people were seen digging in broad daylight, while they also made fires and dug throughout the night. It is incomprehensible as to how such a huge criminal attack has managed to occur undetected and undisturbed by law enforcement. What is also noteworthy is that the thieves seem to possess information, as the lines of the excavation of the cable have been spot on.

Last year, the DA exposed a cable theft operation on the busy N12 whereby one kilometre of copper cable, that supplies electricity to the Kamfers Dam area, was stolen. The DA appealed to SAPS to sharpen its patrol of crime hotspot areas in the absence of action taken by Sol Plaatje municipality to secure its infrastructure. To date, however, neither Sol Plaatje nor SAPS seem to have taken any preventative action to combat this ongoing crime wave.

The DA will raise the matter in Council. We want a cost breakdown of stolen cable and the case numbers of all cable theft incidences that have occurred over the past two years. We want to know how far each of the criminal cases are and whether any convictions have occurred. In addition, Sol Plaatje needs to inform us of how they are collaborating with SAPS to assist in fighting cable theft and also what the security unit is doing to institute patrols of areas that are vulnerable to cable theft.

We cannot sit idly by while Sol Plaatje’s infrastructure is being stripped. After obtaining the information that we require to properly analyse this situation, we will develop constructive proposals and put pressure on the municipality to implement them.

Issued by Ockert Fourie, Cllr - Sol Plaatje Municipality