Cowdray Park residents spend 2 weeks in darkness due to vandalism

OVER 80 Cowdray Park houses were plunged into darkness for two weeks following the theft of armored electricity cables from a transformer which residents suspect was an act by experts with deep knowledge about electricity.

A pliers inscribed with the words F1 Zhuo, suspected to have been used to cut the cables expertly, was picked up by residents at the crime scene in the Segment 7A area in the suburb.

Despite a police report being made, residents say no officers attended the scene and they were told to get a letter from ZESA detailing what exactly was stolen, according to Segment 7A residents’ representative, Mr Stephen Nkomo, who still has the recovered pliers.

“On November 5, one of my neighbours, whose house is next to the transformer, heard some noise around 2am and saw four men on top of the poles where the transformer is mounted,” said Mr Nkomo.

He said the neighbour scared off the suspects and at the same time alerted other residents via the WhatsApp platform. The men jumped and ran to a pickup truck parked a few metres away.

“They had, however, already managed to cut the cables and also unscrewed the breakers. We strongly suspect someone with expert knowledge because an ordinary thief wouldn’t have known which cable to cut,” said Mr Nkomo.

“Our suspicions are further fuelled by the pliers we picked from the scene, which we gather is usually used by ZESA employees or their contractors.”

He expressed disappointment with both ZESA and the police for their lackadaisical approach to the case, more so since residents pooled their resources together to buy all the equipment to have their homes electrified.

Mr Nkomo said the stolen cables cost US$120 per metre and residents had bought 12 metres.

“The police are the experts and one would have expected them to at least attend to the crime scene but they didn’t. Instead, they asked me to first go to ZESA to give me details of what was stolen,” he said.

“I went to the ZESA offices and they promised to come but they never did until today when they started installing aluminium cables.”

When a Chronicle news crew visited the area on Tuesday, two ZESA employees were busy on the ground preparing to install the new cables.

Bulawayo provincial police acting spokesperson, Assistant Inspector Nomalanga Msebele, said they have no record of the Cowdray Park report.

“We don’t have the case you are talking about,” said Asst Insp Msebele.

President Mnangagwa has previously pointed at the involvement of ZESA workers in the spate of theft and vandalism of power infrastructure.

In December last year, six Zimbabwe Power Company employees in Hwange were arrested for stealing electricity transmission cables worth thousands of dollars, while in 2022 a gang with a ZESA employee in its ranks was arrested in Bulawayo for theft of copper cables.

ZESA recently revealed that it had lost critical equipment valued at US$24 million to vandalism and theft from 2019 to August this year.

The power utility said it’s worried by the rising trend in the vandalism and theft of copper and aluminium conductors, cables, transformer oil, pylons and transformers.