Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has put out a reward for anyone with information that can lead to the arrest of suspects who are vandalising and stealing its water and sanitation infrastructure.
The move follows rampant theft and damage of water meters and manhole covers across the metro, with about 2 255 water meters stolen across the city between July last year and May this year.
For context, there are 683 306 water meters. Ottery, Kensington, Lentegeur, Westridge, Wynberg, Lotus River, Portland, Milnerton, Tafelsig and Glenhaven are the top 10 areas affected by the theft of water meters.
This widespread theft has cost the Water and Sanitation Directorate approximately R3.9 million and has got leaders, residents and communities fuming.
Mayco member for water and sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, said among efforts under way to address the impact of the theft and vandalism was the offer of a reward of up to R5 000 for information leading to the arrest of a suspected manhole cover thief or the recovery of City property.
Badroodien said: “While the City is making proactive efforts to replace brass meters with plastic ones, residents can also help the City tackle vandalism and the theft of water and sanitation infrastructure, such as water meters, by reporting information about such incidents for investigation.”
Badroodien said the City had stopped installing brass water meters and was only installing plastic ones due to the scrap value of the brass meters.
“The City cannot condone the theft of critical infrastructure. This reckless, inconsiderate behaviour has a knock-on effect on residents. Stealing a water meter from a property causes major inconvenience for the affected household as they have no water supply until their meter is replaced.”
Lansdowne councillor, Mark Kleinschmidt, who posted a list of nine homes in his area that had been affected by this theft, said he believed that the thefts were being committed by the same people who had until recently been vandalising rail cables.
A notice on the Devil’s Peak Neighbourhood Watch Facebook page warned: “There have been multiple water meter device thefts again this month. In Yeoville Road in June approximately 3 metres of copper piping and the stopcock of the water meter was removed.”
Councillors have not been spared either. In May Ward 77 councillor Francine Higham (DA) was hit by the water meter thieves.
Higham said: “We were the victims of a water meter theft that resulted in no water to all the tenants in our complex.
“The matter of ongoing water meter thefts has been a big topic at our Community Policing Forum and other safety meetings over the past two months as it is apparent that there are syndicates working their way through the residential areas stealing water meters, especially during load shedding.”
ANC councillor Banele Majingo said: “The theft of municipal property has a financial implication for taxpayers. This is unacceptable, the criminals who are targeting water meters or any infrastructure must be brought to book and dealt with harshly.
“We must look at these incidents from a revolving door perspective, where a set of criminals create a problem for others to benefit via contracts in resolving such problems.”
Meanwhile, Cape Town is not alone in the grip of this epidemic of water metre thefts.
Drakenstein Municipality spokesperson Riana Geldenhuys said they had also noticed an increase in thefts
“The theft of water metres increased from 136 for the 2021/2022 financial year to 307 for the 2022/2023 financial year - an increase of 225%.
Geldenhuys said the Municipality had replaced most of these metres with plastic ones to discourage theft and vandalism, but had found that some of the plastic metres were also being vandalised or stolen.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za