Now they're stealing lampposts

The city's costly battle with copper cable thieves has escalated - with lampposts being cut down and sold as scrap along with the cable.

About 50 have been stolen in parts of Blue Downs, Bonteheuwel and Atlantis over the past two months, costing hundreds of thousands of rands.

Authorities warn that at the present rate Blue Downs will soon have no street lights.

Electrical substations are also being targeted for the theft of toxic transformer oil.

It is believed that the cable thieves are to blame for the latest trend.

They apparently operate in groups, aiming at streetlight poles that fetch between R300 and R500 each.

The head of the city's cable theft unit - dubbed the Copperheads - Pieter van Dalen, said it cost the city R10 000 to replace a streetlight pole.

He said the thieves used ropes and chains to pull the poles down.

They then took them to illegal dealers to sell for "next to nothing".

Van Dalen told the Cape Argus that the city had spent more than R100 000 replacing poles in Blue Downs but days later, they had all been stolen.

The city had decided not to replace poles until the community found a solution.

"This area is in complete darkness at night. After replacing the last few lampposts, we decided to keep the lights burning during the day, but even that didn't work.

He said thieves had found a way of tripping the power supply and another 10 lampposts had been pulled out of the ground.

"We have arrested the local scrapyard dealer twice, but he just keeps getting bail."

The Cape Argus accompanied Van Dalen to a scrapyard in Blue Downs this week.

The owner, who is due in court on October 1 over allegations that city property was found on his premises, refused to comment.

SAPS spokesperson Captain Elliot Sinyangana said the police could not reveal their strategy regarding raids.

"A series of police operations have been conducted, which yielded a lot of success," said Sinyangana.

Van Dalen warned that at the present rate of lampposts being stolen, there would be no more street lights in Blue Downs in three months.

Riefaat Hattas, of the city's public lighting department, said they had started a large-scale awareness programme in Bonteheuwel, Bishop Lavis and Valhalla Park to make people aware of the effects of copper cable theft.

"This problem is growing," said Hattas.

He said residents were being urged to report copper cable thieves to the police.

Last month thieves started draining toxic transformer oil from municipal substations.

An estimated 24 000 litres of the dangerous fluid has already been stolen from the city.

The trend was hitting the Atlantis/Mamre areas hardest, Van Dalen said.

It costs the city R32 a litre to replace the oil.