The increased cases of vandalism of Zesa Holdings’ infrastructure across the country has seen some suburbs going for weeks without electricity.

In Bulawayo suburbs such as Waterford, Hillside and Four Winds have been hard hit by vandalism and theft of copper cables.

ZETDC in a bid to reduce theft of copper cables, has been replacing the cables with aluminium.

Government last year suspended the issuance of licences for dealing in scrap copper as part of measures to address the problem of increasing cases of theft of copper cables.

It seems the 10-year mandatory sentence for those convicted of vandalism of Zesa infrastructure is not deterrent enough.

At one time Zesa required about US$40 million to replace  4 000 transformers which had been vandalised across the country.

At that time the power utility had lost 1 000 km of power lines to cable thieves.

The bulk of the stolen copper is being smuggled into neighbouring South Africa where there is a ready market.

The copper cables thieves are so daring that they even cut live wires hence many of them have been electrocuted.

What is however surprising is that the deaths of these daring thieves are not a deterrent enough.

ZETDC’s acting western region general manager Engineer Lloyd Jaji said the power utility was struggling to replace the stolen cables due to inadequate resources. He said the permanent solution is to replace all copper cables with aluminium but they do not have the aluminium at the moment.

Eng Jaji said Zesa had engaged the army and the police to assist in fighting vandalism and theft of copper cables.

The increased cases of vandalism of Zesa infrastructure have prompted members of the public to lobby for the mandatory sentence to be increased from 10 to 20 years.

Vandalism of Zesa infrastructure disrupts power supplies thereby impacting negatively on productivity.

The people vandalising Zesa infrastructure and those buying the stolen cables or transformer oil live within our communities.

It is therefore incumbent upon each and every citizen to join the fight against vandalism by reporting the culprits to the police.

Many electricity consumers are going for long periods without power as a result of vandalism which can be reduced if citizens are vigilant and play their part in protecting Zesa infrastructure.