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Cable theft cripples Gautrain

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 10 Aug 2011

There was no Gautrain train service between Hatfield and Centurion this morning, due to overnight cable theft at a substation.

The Gautrain Web site says an emergency bus service between Hatfield, Centurion and Pretoria will run until the problem is resolved. The Web site states that the problem is expected to be resolved today.

Until the issue is resolved, the Gautrain bus feeder routes in Hatfield, Pretoria and Centurion will operate on a frequency of 24 minutes rather than the scheduled 12 minutes.

Theft drop

The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) says copper theft in SA has hit its lowest mark in a year-and-a-half.

It says its Copper Theft Barometer registered R14.37 million in June 2011, the lowest since January 2010.

This is considerably below the 2011 monthly average of between R16 million and R18 million. It is also substantially below spikes of R20.5 million in January and April.

The barometer registered a level of R15.63 million in May 2011. “A consistent downward trend has not yet been achieved, but the breaching of the lower bound of R16 million a month in May opens the possibility of contained levels of theft,” said the institution in July.

The barometer measures and monitors copper cable theft in the country on a monthly basis. Copper theft so far this year amounts to R105.56 million.

Factors that contribute to the difficulty in combating non-ferrous metal theft include weak export control measures and poor inspection measures of containers, says SACCI.

It adds that increasing longer term price of copper and increasing demand both domestically and internationally make theft a lucrative illegal business.

SACCI in February reported that cable theft in SA cost Eskom, Transnet and Telkom R259 million in 2010.

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