It was too good to be true. The town went for a whole week with no interruption to the water supply. But then, just when residents started hoping that some semblance of normality was starting to emerge, the intrepid copper cable thieves struck again. The result: the whole town is left without water for two days.

Last week, Zoutpansberger published a photo of the new wall that had been erected at the pump station next to the railway line. The municipality built the wall as a deterrent to copper cable thieves, hoping that it would prevent any further theft of this very expensive resource. No such luck! The only thing it did was to make the job of the contractors who had to replace the cable more difficult, since they now had to get to the distribution boxes via a window at the back of the pump station.

The cables were stolen at the railway pump station on Wednesday night/Thursday morning last week at around midnight. Shortly afterwards, a municipal official arrived on the scene. He alerted the police to the theft. Roughly half an hour later, two suspects were arrested on the corner of Pretorius and Munnik Street, with copper cable in their possession. They appeared in court on Friday and were released on bail of R500 each. They will appear in court again on 28 July on a charge of theft.

Earlier on Thursday (June 26), copper cables were stolen at the Albasini Dam pump station, where thieves made off with about 10 meters of cable. The thieves did not even bother to switch off the electricity supply and stole only one of the two cables, which indicates that they are becoming more and more confident.

The latest theft occurred on Wednesday morning at pump station number 3 in Leeu Street at around midnight. The usual result, that of reservoirs running dry and thereby leaving the town without water, occurred. To make matters worse, the municipal official in charge of repairs had to travel to Polokwane for more cable, since the municipality’s supply had run out. This set back the repair process by another three hours, apart from the two hours it would take to affect the repairs. Added to this, the official said, the reservoirs first have to fill up and the air in the pipes has to be removed before the water supply to residences can be restored. The cumulative result was that residents would probably not have access to water before Thursday, if everything went well.