Chairperson, hon members, today I present a plan for us finally to resolve the copper theft crisis in our country. Copper theft is an alarming and escalating problem. The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that it costs our economy direct and indirect losses of R10 billion a year.
It is also clear that this crime is perpetrated by an increasingly sophisticated and highly organised group of syndicates. Their primary goal is to strip our infrastructure of as much copper as they can in order to export it as scrap copper.
It is time that we take a stand. For too long our parastatals and government sat idly by as a small group of thieves enrich themselves at the expense of our country's infrastructure. For too long our parastatals and government departments have refused the support and advice of industry and security experts.
When the DA was elected to office in Cape Town in 2006, we were faced with the same problem. We decided to deal with the issue head-on by instituting a specialised unit to combat copper theft. This unit became famous in Cape Town as the "Copperheads", and was responsible for dramatically reducing the rate of copper theft in the city. I believe that a similar approach in the rest of the country should be followed.
Chairperson, I therefore propose that the following be done immediately to combat copper theft across the country: Put specialised units in place in municipalities and parastatals that are especially hard hit by copper theft, as this approach was successful in Cape Town and can work elsewhere; and implement the Second-Hand Goods Act, Act 6 of 2009, which was signed into law in 2009 and is yet to be implemented. Its provisions will help the police to enforce the law better in this regard.
The police should declare copper theft a priority crime. This will free up more resources to spend on cases relating to copper theft and will oblige the SAPS to spend more time on investigating these cases. Give copper theft its own crime code in the SAPS electronic crime database. At this stage there is no separate database on instances of copper theft and therefore it is difficult to put a sophisticated anticopper-theft strategy in place. By simply giving copper theft its own crime code, we can record the instances of copper theft more thoroughly and wage a more effective campaign against it.
Set copper theft reduction targets and hold leaders accountable for these targets. Work much more closely with industry and security experts. There are numerous organisations and individuals who are capable of providing expert assistance and are willing to do so, but they are all too often ignored by officials from state-owned enterprises or government departments. The SAPS does not carry the responsibility for protecting our infrastructure alone. Every entity that has copper cabling in the ground or in the air must have its own specialised unit to deal with this.
This is the plan I propose to you today. Let us endeavour together to protect our country's infrastructure and make it a reality.
Izinyoka ngabavukeli mbuso. [Copper thieves are saboteurs.]
Thank you. [Applause.]