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Midlands Business Correspondent
ZESA subsidiary, Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), last year lost 13 tonnes of copper value at $260.000 through acts of vandalism and theft in the southern region alone.The southern region covers the entire Midlands, parts of Matabeleland North (Nkayi) and parts of Mashonaland East (Chivhu).

ZETDC general manager for the southern region, King Dube said the thefts have resulted in the power utility losing potential revenue.

“The southern region lost a total of 13 tonnes of copper conductors valued at $260.000 and no case of theft of transformer oil was recorded
during the year 2014. We lost revenue amounting to $774.795 due to copper and transformer oil theft in 2013,” he said.

“A total of 41.266 metres of copper wire valued at $608.340 were stolen in 2013 and 11.109 litres of transformer oil was also drained in the same year.”

To curb the incidents of theft of copper cables the power utility in 2011 entered a deal with CAFCA, which saw ZETDC replacing the copper cables with power conductors that do not have a high street value.

The ZETDC boss said the project was progressing well with close to 4.000 km of power cables having been covered.

“The programme is progressing well and is currently 87 percent complete. This has covered most of the MV and HV lines and so far about 3.980km has been covered,” he added.

Dube said Zesa was making inroads in addressing the crime by holding awareness campaigns and working in partnership with the police who have since apprehended many suspects in connection with the thefts.

Early this month a syndicate of four people were caught in Zvishavane and were successfully prosecuted, convicted and sentenced at Zvishavane Magistrates court to ten years imprisonment each and another syndicate of five (5) people were arrested and successfully prosecuted and convicted at Gweru Magistrates court.

The matter has since been referred to the High Court for sentencing since the five are facing ten counts that carry a mandatory sentence of ten years per count.