By A Correspondent- Five cable thieves who were convicted on 50 counts of copper theft crimes committed between 2016 and 2018 were among first offenders to be charged under the amended legislation.
In February, the five were found guilty of 50 counts of copper theft-related crimes in the Cape Town High Court. Two other people who were charged alongside the five accused were found guilty posthumously as they died during the trial.
The group stole copper cables belonging to Eskom and Telkom in the Namaqualand and Western Cape regions. They were slammed with a cumulative 1,250-year sentence.
Prosecution of people who have been arrested for cable theft changed when the Criminal Matters Amendment Act of 2015 came into effective on June 1 in 2016.
The Act created far harsher sentencing and bail conditions for people who damage essential infrastructure for services such as transport, power, water and communications.
The law created a new offence, which is the damaging of infrastructure that disrupts the provision of essential services, whether publicly or privately owned.
Cable theft previously was prosecuted as malicious damage to property, which gave those convicted of the crime lesser sentences. In the 2016 legislation there are minimum sentences of three years for first-time copper thieves and a maximum of 30 years for those involved in instigating such crimes.
Eskom has estimated that it spends R2bn a year in replacing stolen cables.
Municipalities have also been hit by cable theft, particularly on their electricity distribution networks. The Passenger Rail Agency of SA has also suffered losses which forced the closure of many of its routes during the lockdown as thieves helped themselves to infrastructure due to a lack of security.