In an already perilous economic environment, some of Mzansi’s farmers face another drain on their resources: the plague of cable theft. Daan van Leeuwen, who heads the public benefit organisation Drankenstein Farm Watch, says that cable theft is rampant and that more needs to be done to curb the issue.
South Africa’s state-owned entities such as Eskom and Transnet lose around R7 billion to cable theft each year, with the indirect costs to the economy estimated at R187 billion per annum.
One of the sectors bearing the brunt is the farming community as thieves regularly steal critical power lines in rural areas which distribute electricity to farmhouses, offices, pumps and irrigation systems and cold storage and processing facilities. Often, other infrastructure is damaged in the process.
In a recent incident on Freedom Day this year (27 April 2022), members of Drakenstein Farm Watch were called to shut down a cable theft in progress near Paarl in the Western Cape. The theft was stopped before the thieves could take the main cable but they had already damaged other cables.
“We have had many discussions about the enormous disasters which come forward when cables are being cut. And we’re not talking about 50 metres of cable. We are talking about a syndicate that steals three kilometres of it [at a time],” says Van Leeuwen.
He explains that cable thieves are often highly prepared and have not only the equipment to take substantial amounts of cabling but also weapons.
“They come with a truck with a winch on it and they [take] two to three kilometres of cable. The guys who do it – the big thieves – are armed. They shoot at people. It is a whole syndicate because there’s big money involved.”
A lack of institutional support
Van Leeuwen says although the farm watch works with the local municipality and the police, these institutions lack the infrastructure and knowledge to be as effective as they need to be.
“They’re all very willing, but they have not got the materials. I’ll give you an example. As farm watch, we own most of the LPR [licence plate recognition] cameras around Paarl. We had them installed because we want to see who comes into our area.”
He says that suspected vehicles that pass through the camera system are identified, but they have no one who can process the data. “We can’t do [anything] with the data because the police have no equipment to receive the data from us.
“What do we do with the data then? Who do we send after them? They’re willing police officers, buy they are understaffed and underequipped. From the higher echelons, they are not getting the equipment they need.”
“And the municipality is actually in the same situation: very willing to assist, but they do not really have the know-how, the capabilities, the network, the radio frequencies or the response teams to go after these guys.”
Cable theft a threat to farmers
Kobus Visser, Agri SA’s provincial chamber, rural safety and agri securitas executive, says that farmers suffer numerous knock-on effects due to cable theft. He explains that irrigation farmers, for instance, end up having trouble with their yields.
“The crops don’t get irrigated as they should, and it has a really severe effect on the yield of those crops. Also, if you don’t have electricity, it has a security risk for the farmer. Your security systems don’t work, and your fences are jeopardised.”
Visser says that in 2018, Agri SA did a survey amongst farmers to determine how crime affects them. He says that 37,21% of farmers affected by crime has experienced infrastructure theft. Cable theft is included in this percentage.
Keith Middleton, an irrigation farmer from Kimberley, describes cable theft as “a nightmare”. He says that, besides the financial losses farmers suffer due to compromised yields, another consequence of cable theft is job losses.
“Cable theft and copper theft, or anything for that matter, has a negative knock-on effect [where] you have to lay off people.”
He also believes that cable theft reduces the sustainability of a farming enterprise, which holds back the development of farmers, especially black, developing farmers.
“You just cannot develop as you ought to. Farmers who are trying to commercialise… the knock-on effect takes years to recover from. And that’s what most people don’t understand.”
He says farming is already capital intensive, and experiencing the effects of crime adds an additional burden to the already strained pockets of farmers.
“With all the inputs going up and the diesel going up and fertiliser, it really impacts us negatively when any theft of cables happen. It’s an unnecessary loss. You take all precautions and you think that the cables are live so people won’t steal them, [then] you find out that they devise means and ways to steal the cables. It causes losses, it causes delays, it causes losses in jobs and in revenue. It makes businesses unsustainable. It’s a real problem.”
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