Byline: Kelebogile Masemola
29 April 2022
Community members from Mabopane marched from Meat good corner in Block B to Terminus on Friday, 29 April to hand over their memorandum of grievances.
The memorandum includes the call for police to step in and close the illegal scrapyard around the community.
The scrapyards are allegedly selling stolen copper cables.
Danny Mokwele, the organizer of the march, said that lately there has been a surge of load shedding, and it has led to the aftermath of cable theft, which became worrisome because it had a criminal element inside.
The schedule of load shedding would state how long the electricity will be gone, but that will be prolonged because criminal elements take advantage of load shedding to go and still copper cables at various power stations.
It leads to electrical applications getting damaged, food getting rotten and business productivity coming to a halt, also criminal activities within the community rises.
“We want to go to the police station to show them how serious we are about this issue,” said Mokwele.
They want to be accompanied by the police when they visit these scrapyards so that they can do everything within the confinements of the laws.
They gave the police 7 days to respond to their grievances.
Tebogo Munku said that she wants the scrapyards to be closed within 7 days, and they must be registered which will prevent them from buying stolen cables that affect the community including businesses.
They also want Mabopane to have order and not experience cable theft which leads to unnecessary power failures.
