Tougher penalties and increased awareness needed to curb copper cable theft

Increasing the penalties for the perpetrators of copper cable theft and improving training and awareness amongst those responsible for fighting this crime are two of the main challenges that need to be urgently addressed before progress can be made. This is according to Bernard Maguire, Executive Member of the Metals Recycling Association and Sidney Arnold, General Manager Network Operations at MTN.

Rens Bindeman, Technical Advisor at the South African Revenue Protection Association (SARPA), concurs with the above sentiments. In his opinion a major breakthrough in the fight against copper theft has been, "the fact that so many SAPS members were sensitised this year regarding the impact of this type of crime on the country and how to combat it [and] also a dedicated police official has been appointed at each police station to focus on the second hand dealers."
Bindeman is also actively involved in helping to train the SAPS by developing training courses to combat non-ferrous metal thefts which will be run in January 2013.

Maguire, Arnold and Bindeman are all speaking at the Copper Cable Theft conference taking place in Cape Town on 6 and 7 November 2012, organised by the Institute for International Research. This event follows on from the successful Copper Cable Theft conference held earlier this year in Johannesburg, which was attended by key stakeholders from both the public and private sectors.

For more information please contact IIR on +27 (0) 11 771 7000 or az.oc.rii@eracremotsuc, or visit www.iir.co.za/coppercabletheft.