Jo'burg.....and the disappearing act....

Johannesburg is one of the busiest, economically rich and a well know destination for tourism in South Africa...and Africa. Like some major disappearing act, bits, large and small, of Jo'burg, are vanishing daily. A new magician in town?? Nope.....thieves are stealing it bit by bit....literally....

The City of Gold is fast becoming The City Without Metal. Thieves are literally carrying Johannesburg away, piece by piece....anything is game, man hole covers, storm water drain inlets, guard railings along highways, road signage boards, traffic lights, bridge hand rails, bridge expansion joints, railway lines, electric pylons....nothing is out of reach of there dangerous scavengers. The theft includes lucrative copper cables, which as we all know, leads to extended electric black-outs. This alone is estimated to cost Johannesburg some R30 Million a year. (The lost cable replacement value alone stands at R12,5 Million). The bill for road and pavement metal theft is around R57 Million a year.

This is pretty frightening. In one incident, 5km of railway line was stolen.....that is a lot of steel to move. Electric pylons....massive structures, yet seem to be fair game too, already two have been brought down to be scavenged by the metal vultures.

To add to this, the council is not the speediest to get things done , so it sometimes takes weeks, months and in some cases, years, for things to be replaced or fixed. This is a reality and not me being negative. The council is largely inefficient, with managers and higher,being overpaid and unqualified and pretty much either unable or unwilling to do their jobs the way they should be performed. Theft also gives them a viable excuse for extended outages and poor road maintenance, that they would have had to find an excuse for anyway as it would not be done. Enough said on this, as this is a paper all on it's own. History has made me cynical in this regard.

The effect of this is worrying....from a tourist point of view, imagine coming to a city, with massive amount of noticeable infrastructure missing.. From a safety point of view, it is the most worrying. This is so obvious, I am not even going to delve any more into that aspect. From a replacement and budget point of view, it is crippling. As it is, Millions are misused, electricity is stolen by tens of thousands of households and businesses, so the Council coffers are not as full as they ought to be. This obviously means that other budgets must be reduced to pay for this maintenance, when and if it is done. The cost to business also runs into the millions. Over and above this....just the mere fact that long fingered parasites can, without any regard, pick a city clean, reminds me of some post apocalyptic scene in a movie.

There is no doubt that strong and drastic action needs to be taken. This is further complicated by dishonest police members and officials benefiting from the syndicates. Our legal system also needs to become more efficient and longer jail terms are needed as a punishment and deterrent.
In essence they should be charged with sabotage (difficult to make it stick sadly) or attempted murder (just as difficult)...due to the long ranging consequences of their actions. The same goes for whoever buys or is caught in possession of these stolen items. Our laws need to be less criminal friendly, as do our courts.

Johannesburg metro police have promised to be the posse who stops and arrests these disgusting individuals....but, again, I am cynical until I see proof, as so many government and municipality structures are quick to write the cheques that they will not be able to cash in the long run.