R2m worth of cables stolen from Bay depot

MORE than R2-million worth of copper cables and metal has been stolen from the Forest Hill train depot over the past month.

Police spokesman Captain Stanley Jarvis said the metal and copper was stripped from an electrical substation based at the Humerail Transnet depot.

“According to the supervisor at Transnet, he went down to the substation to do his monthly inspection. When he arrived he found one of the windows shattered and burglar bars bent backwards,” Jarvis said.

“The electricity transformer in the depot was stripped of all its wires and other metal inside the depot was stolen.”

Jarvis said the estimated value of stolen items was about R2-million.

“We have alerted our non-ferrous metal task team who will be conducting inspections at various scrap dealers in an attempt to locate the stolen property,” he said.

According to the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry, copper theft in July cost businesses about R 19.7-million. This marks an increase from June when theft cost business about R 17.9-million.

This theft comes after Transport Minister Ben Martins revealed last month that parastatals such as Telkom, Eskom, Transnet, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa and Metrorail, lost R3.12-billion to copper theft between April 2006 and December last year.