The Mozambican police have arrested four people in the central city of Chimoio for the theft of 25 kilometres of copper electric cable, reports the Beira daily paper “Diario de Mocambique”.The thieves hacked down wooden electricity pylons on the road from Chimoio to Macate, in Gondola district, and then helped themselves to the cables.The police say they arrested the men on 25 October, when they were carrying the stolen material in a vehicle driven by a man named Celestino Chissambe.Chissambe said he had been contacted to pick up a sick person in Macate town and take him to hospital. But when he arrived he found three people who told him the real reason they wanted to use his services was to transport rolls of cables. Chissambe said he was unaware of the true origin of the cables, and thought they were just “rolls of wire”.
The vehicle had not driven far before it was intercepted by a brigade from the publicly owned electricity company, EDM, accompanied by the police. All four people in the vehicle, including Chissambe, were detained.One of the thieves, Erasmo Manuel, said they had intended to sell the cables for 50 meticais (slightly less than two US dollars) a kilo. There were about ten rolls, each weighing over 15 kilos. So the thieves expected to sell the stolen cables for a total of about 2,250 meticais.The spokesperson for the Manica Provincial Police Command, Belmiro Matadiua, said the preliminary investigations indicate that this was not the first time these men had stolen electrical cables. EDM has warned repeatedly that it suffers enormous losses from the theft of cables, and of metallic parts from pylons and other equipment. The thefts oblige it to divert money which should have gone into expanding the national grid into replacing the stolen materials instead.The cables are often sold to scrap metal merchants – a business which is virtually unregulated.
The vehicle had not driven far before it was intercepted by a brigade from the publicly owned electricity company, EDM, accompanied by the police. All four people in the vehicle, including Chissambe, were detained.One of the thieves, Erasmo Manuel, said they had intended to sell the cables for 50 meticais (slightly less than two US dollars) a kilo. There were about ten rolls, each weighing over 15 kilos. So the thieves expected to sell the stolen cables for a total of about 2,250 meticais.The spokesperson for the Manica Provincial Police Command, Belmiro Matadiua, said the preliminary investigations indicate that this was not the first time these men had stolen electrical cables. EDM has warned repeatedly that it suffers enormous losses from the theft of cables, and of metallic parts from pylons and other equipment. The thefts oblige it to divert money which should have gone into expanding the national grid into replacing the stolen materials instead.The cables are often sold to scrap metal merchants – a business which is virtually unregulated.
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