Johannesburg's City Power acting CEO Tshifularo Mashava has welcomed the arrest of a metal scrapyard manager for possession of suspected stolen copper cables.
The manager was among eight suspects arrested in separate incidents of cable theft between Friday and Sunday night.
City Power said 17 cable theft incidents were reported in Johannesburg over the same period.
The 65-year-old scrapyard manager was arrested on Friday afternoon when the SAPS’ essential infrastructure task team raided Vortex Recycling along Pretoria Main Road in Wynberg. He was found in possession of stolen copper cables, some of which City Power security positively identified. The cables, some belonging to Prasa, are estimated to be worth about R245,000.
Mashava said “scrapyard dealers seem to be the key enablers of the cable-theft problem because they allow stolen material to their space, rewarding the criminality we are grappling with”.
“We will be working with other stakeholders, to intensify the raids on the scrapyards across the city until we win this war against cable theft.
“We call on the scrapyard owners to do the right thing and reject stolen cables. They need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”
TimesLIVE
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