Pretoria – The Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Ministry has welcomed the publication of the Criminal Matters Amendment Bill 2015 as a further measure in protecting South Africa’s essential infrastructure from organised criminal activity.
The Bill proposes to criminalise the unlawful and intentional tampering with, damaging or destroying of essential infrastructure, and provides for the imposition of severe penalties, up to 30 years imprisonment.
“Theft and damage to infrastructure have devastating consequences for local government and the provision of basic services such as water, electricity, transport, and health,” the Ministry said on Tuesday.
A working group was established in 2014, chaired by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Deputy Minister Andries Nel, consisting of Deputy Minister of Police Maggie Sotyu, Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services John Jeffer, Ellen Molekane Deputy Minister of State Security and Public Enterprises Deputy Minister Bulelani Magwanishe.
It was established to make proposals for urgent and concerted action by government, the private sector and communities to protect South Africa’s socio-economic infrastructure from the theft and illicit trade in both ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
“The working group made recommendations to tighten legislation, strengthen the operational capacity of our law enforcement agencies and improve collaboration and coordination among them and the private sector, and also recommended that government mobilise all citizens to collaborate with law enforcement agencies and foster a civic morality that respects public infrastructure and demands its defence,” said the Ministry.
The working group highlighted challenges such as social and economic cost caused by theft often far outweighs the actual value of the material stolen and resulted in loss of income, disruption of essential services, diversion of scarce resources as well as social instability.
Amongst the challenges, the working group noted increasingly frequent reports of deliberate damage to local government infrastructure, especially water infrastructure, to achieve political goals or economic gain, and the poor management of the licensing of scrap metal dealers and monitoring their operations as well as inadequate monitoring of scrap metal exports have exacerbated the situation.
The working group made recommendations to the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Council (PICC) and they were accepted.
Recommendations included that existing legislation be strengthened by consideration of amendments providing for minimum sentences in cases where theft of non-ferrous metals has caused serious interference with or disruption of an essential service rendered for the benefit of the public, serious damage to an infrastructural facility or system, whether publicly or privately owned; or the theft was committed by a security officer at a property he or she was required to protect or the security officer acted in common purpose or conspired with a group or syndicate.
It recommended that the regulation of scrap metal dealers be tightened by, amongst others, limiting the number of licenses issued, centralising their registration nationally, requiring the registration of export agents who buy from scrap metal dealers, prohibiting export agents from buying from unregistered dealers, prohibiting all payment in cash for scrap metal.
“The working group also recommended that the Ministers of Trade and Industry and Economic Development and the National Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service consider measures to ensure that all containers containing scrap metal will be subjected to rigorous inspection in terms of the International Trade Administration Commission Act,” said the Ministry.
The PICC also accepted the working group's recommendations that operational efficiency of law enforcement agencies be enhanced.
“The PICC also accepted the recommendation that consideration be given to further measures including either a direct ban on all scrap metal exports for a period of time or the imposition of an export tax to decrease its commercial attractiveness and in this way reduce the demand for the collection of scrap metal which is feeding the theft of cable and metal,” said the Ministry. - SAnews.gov.za
