Cable theft is starting to becoming a very serious crime around villages and more than 20 houses were left in the dark at Nwamhandzi village around Bungeni area last week Thursday, after electricity cables were cut after midnight while the people were asleep.

Community members affected said that they were surprised to wake up in the morning to find that the cables connecting electricity to their houses had been cut off. Mirror has learnt that the residents collected money for petrol and hired a taxi to report the matter to the police station, where they were only given an affidavit and were told to go to Eskom at Louis Trichardt. It is alleged that the Eskom people undertook to come and fix the cables but the people’s hopes were in vain, as nothing has been done since.

Joyce Khoza, a community member, said that, as a vendor, she was forced to give away all her stock that belonged in the fridge to children and that she had lost her stock. "The cable theft is affecting everything that we do in my house. I am sick and cannot go to the bushes to fetch wood. I only rely on using a stove when I cook, and my daughter is studying for her June exam, using a candle," she added.

Mirror has also learnt that the community members were told at the meeting they had on Sunday that there was no case number, since no case had been opened because they had only been given an affidavit at the police station to go to Eskom.

The community members said that they were not happy with the police for ignoring their report because they think that if a person breaks into a house at midnight by cutting their fences, this is a crime that needs to be investigated. A community member said that she followed the footprints from her house and they led her to the suspect, but she was afraid to take matters into her own hands.