Online Reporter
Thupeyo Muleya-Beitbridge Bureau
THE Beitbridge Regional Magistrates Court has sentenced a 46-year-old man from Shabwe under Chief Matibe to an effective 10 years in jail after he was convicted of stealing 25 metres of electricity cables from a shop at Nuli Business Centre.
Priseman Moyo was arrested after police and the shop owner tracked him while he was transporting the stolen cables to Lutumba Growth Point, where he intended to sell them.
The stolen weather-dac triple-C cables —insulated overhead electricity distribution cables used by the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), were valued at US$500.
Moyo was convicted of contravening the Electricity Act when he appeared before Regional Magistrate Charity Maphosa.
Prosecutor Willbrought Muleya told the court that on the night of October 23 this year, Moyo went to Nuli Business Centre carrying a pair of pliers.
He cut 25 metres of the ZETDC weather-dac cable supplying Triple Star shop and took the cable to his homestead, about a kilometre away.
There, he burnt off the insulation to extract the copper wires before loading them into a sack before setting off for Lutumba Growth Point to sell them.
On the way, he stopped at a local tuckshop to rest.
After discovering the power disconnection, the owner of Triple Star shop reported the theft to the police.
Investigators were able to track Moyo using a trail he had left leading to the spot where he burnt the cable.
They continued following the trail and eventually found him at the tuckshop still in possession of the copper wires.
Moyo was arrested on the spot, and police recovered 7.2kg of copper scrap worth US$29.
