Andries Nel, the deputy minister was concluded in an intense debate in Johannesburg, stating that, the department was anticipating to mark copper as a precious metal, which has been agreed and advocated by many institutions including the state owned, TRANSNET, logistics giant.
At the convention of Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities, the representatives stated that, the government should hurry up and introduce new security measures in order to hold up the increasing number of copper theft, and also trace the whole link of copper cable syndicates.
At the end of last month, a copper theft at Gauteng’s metro lead to THE water crisis, which lasted for at least three weeks. Moreover, that the theft leads to the delay of Gautrain operations which took place last week, between Hatffeild and Pretoria
As the legislation lacks tight laws on the copper theft, it was seldom the copper thefts who were caught, convicted under the law successfully, stated the department