Chronicle Editor
Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
RESIDENTS of Hillside and parts of Fourwinds suburbs in Bulawayo yesterday woke up with no electricity after thieves stole nearly 2km of copper cables along Matopos Road.
Bulawayo has of late been hit by a series of power outages mostly due to copper cables theft, with suburbs such as Hillside, Burnside and Killarney being the worst affected.
The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) is now in the process of replacing copper cables with aluminium ones.
Yesterday, a Chronicle news crew visited the affected suburb and observed ZETDC workers busy replacing the stolen copper cables along Matopos Road in Hillside. About 1,7km of copper cables were stolen by thieves.
ZETDC is seeking a review of the sentence for individuals convicted of stealing power cables and transformers from 10 years to 30 years to curb the vice that is prejudicing Zesa Holdings of more than US$2 million annually.
ZETDC requires more than US$14 million to procure intruder detection gadgets to fight the scourge that continues to bleed the power utility.
Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) co-ordinator Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu said they were concerned over rampant theft of copper cables.
“Copper has become an increasingly attractive commodity fuelling huge thefts that leave residents in the dark. The fact that only a few arrests related to copper cables thefts have been effected lead to more theft,” he said.
“As BPRA we met with the Zesa management over the blackouts and copper cables theft and they indicated that this is a national problem. The negative consequence from this has been power outages that inconvenience residents who then have to go for weeks or sometimes months without electricity.”
Mr Ndlovu urged residents in the affected areas to work with police and ZETDC in surveillance and increasing security around power lines.
Zesa’s acting western region general manager Engineer Lloyd Jaji said most of the power outages in the city were as a result of copper cables theft.
“We are now in the process of replacing copper cables with aluminium following an increase in copper theft.
Killarney and Burnside are the main criminal hotspots for copper thieves,” he said.
“However, it should be noted that the replacement process cannot be done overnight. It’s a process which we are doing in phases where we have contractors, contract workers and our own personnel doing that.”
Eng Jaji said the major challenge is that whenever they replace copper cables, thieves go and attack another area.
In April, about 950 metres of copper cables were stolen in Njube resulting the suburb including neighbouring Old Lobengula, Lobengula Extension and Mpopoma going for days without electricity.
Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube said they were investigating several cases of theft of copper cables in the city.
“We are investigating several cases of copper cables theft and it appears thieves are taking advantage of the lockdown to commit crime. We have intensified our night patrols and as police we also urge residents to assist us with information that could lead to the arrest of suspects involved in copper theft,” he said.
Last May, police in Bulawayo arrested two serial copper cables thieves after using sniffer dogs to fish the two men out of a manhole while busy cutting copper cables.
One of the suspects has since appeared in court and was sentenced to 70 years in jail over the US$20 000 copper theft case.
Zesa Holdings has since invited whistle-blowers to curb the upsurge in vandalism and theft of electricity infrastructure witnessed in the last few months. – @mashnets.
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