Scrap yards promote crime

BAME PIET
Staff Writer | Friday May 11, 2007 00:00

 

The scrap metal dealers will be placed under fulltime surveillance, with police posted at their businesses or police recruiting informers in their midst. 'These are extreme measures we don't easily resort to,' Kapinga said.

But this organised crime was leaving the police with little choice as ambitious national projects - including Botswana's becoming an offshore banking destination and an international financial services centre - were seriously threatened.

A spokesman of the Department of Waste Management and Pollution Control also issued a stern warning that the law was going to take its course. 

Kapinga was speaking in Gaborone at a special meeting called to examine how scrap metal dealers might help the police stem the tide of the theft of cables mainly from the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC), the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC), Water Utilities Corporation (WUC), and Botswana Railways (BR). 

'We are in a crisis. Infact, it is a pandemic linked to the growing scrap metal industry in Botswana,' the police chief said. 

'Even the theft of motor vehicles in which cars are never recovered is linked to the scrap metal industry and second-hand parts retailers.'  

Kapinga said that the recent installation of telecommunication lines in Tswapong North had not improved the quality of life there because phones were not connected as the cables were soon vandalised and stolen.

'As we speak, the four villages that make up Tswapong North have no connectivity,' Kapinga noted. He told the gathering - mainly of srap metal dealers - that police were aware that cable thieves were now more active in rural areas after it became more difficult for them to operate in urban areas.

The BTC recently lost cables worth in excess of P100, 000 in Letlhakane in the Boteti District. In connection with that theft, a scrap yard dealer paid an unknown man a paltry P1, 000 for metal worth P6, 000. 

Kapinga said even the air traffic control tower at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport had not been spared by callous cable thieves.

The police chief pointed out that key public utilities and other crucial service providers were now having to spend huge amounts of money replacing vandalised infrastructure instead of improving service delivery. 

Even Botswana's dreams of becoming an international financial services centre as a means of diversifying the economy had come under serious threat.
A tough-talking Kapinga told the gathering: 'If we don't see an improvement, we will have no choice but to introduce hard-line tactics.' He appealed to the scrap metal dealers to cooperate with the police.

Meanwhile, the scrap metal dealers took the opportunity to explain their business. Patson Jere of Vunda Investments in Kanye said that anybody selling scrap metal to them is required to prove ownership of the metal, produce an identity card and to provide contact numbers. 

Jere said dealers had made it known - by means of notice boards, among others - that they did not accept BTC, BPC or BR cables.

He, however, acknowledged that it was often difficult to determine the source of a cable, but they sometimes invited the police where they were in doubt.

It emerged from the meeting that only a few scrap metal dealers practising in Botswana were licensed. Moneedi Kgweenyane, who represented the Department of Waste Management and Pollution Control, said scrap metal dealers were reluctant to obtain licences and that the licensed ones hardly availed themselves when his department conducted inspections.

'Every time we visit the scrap yards we are told the manager has gone to South Africa and that there is no one to account. Strangely, the employees are authorised to purchase the cables,' Kgweenyane said.  Many of the licensed ones did not obey the requirements of the licence, such as the installation of toilets and showers for use by employees. 

Kgweenyane said that his department was going to enforce the law, and that those found flouting it would be fined, prosecuted, or have their licences suspended or their businesses closed. 

Under the law, charges of up to P14, 000 or imprisonment of up to seven months are provided for. Kgweenyane pointed out that unlike in the past, scrap metal dealers would now have to pay for their licences. 

He warned the dealers that his department's law enforcement officers had the right to access company records and that those dealers found to be at variance with stipulated conditions would face the wrath of the law.