| Although there is a fair amount of coverage in the | | | | people are confirmed dead, and one firefighting plane |
| media about the crime and corruption in South Africa, | | | | went down, killing the New Zealander pilot. The |
| such as the arms deal debacle and crime against | | | | smoke plumes were clearly visable in the satellite |
| tourists, there is an underlying moral vacuum which is | | | | weather photos. |
| seldom mentioned. Being aware of the situation "on | | | | 6. Telephone wires are systematically stripped to get |
| the ground" may give the reader a proper | | | | the copper, which is sold as scrap metal. People have |
| perspective of what exactly is happening here. Only | | | | now given up, and only use cellphones in some areas, |
| property crime is dealt with here, as violent crime is a | | | | as their land line was never working. |
| subject on it's own. | | | | 7. A contractor who was building 30 metre cellphone |
| What follows is actual happenings and observations | | | | masts offloaded an entire sectional 30 metre mast |
| during normal day to day life. These are not stories | | | | on a Friday, intending to erect the mast with a large |
| or fabrications or even exaggerations, although it | | | | crane starting on the Monday. When he returned on |
| may seem that these items are too far fetched to | | | | Monday the entire mast had been stolen. |
| be real. They are real. | | | | 8. People have had their cars impounded at the police |
| 1. A train derailed this week. It was carrying coal for | | | | pound for parking illegally or some other traffic |
| export, and was a few kilometers long. These trains | | | | offence. When they arrive a day or so later to |
| are some of the longest in the world, up to three | | | | collect their car, it has been stripped, inside the police |
| kilometers or more in length. The reason for the | | | | pound yard, and only the shell of the car remains. |
| derailment was that people had stolen the bolts that | | | | This is a very common occurance. |
| hold the railway line to the sleepers, over many | | | | 9. A number of kilometers of railway line track was |
| hundreds of meters, to sell for scrap metal. | | | | stolen near Johannesburg this last month. |
| 2. Near Johannesburg, a train carrying bags of | | | | 10. Large electrical cables supplying suburbs with |
| cement broke down due to mechanical failure. While | | | | electricity, are dug up out of the ground and stolen, |
| it was being repaired, the local people stole all the | | | | plunging large areas into darkness. The thieves do this |
| bags of cement off the train. Not thieves in the | | | | to a "live" cable by laying the cable over a rock and |
| normal sense, but everyone: men, women and | | | | hitting it with another large rock. This cable is sold for |
| children. | | | | scrap. They may get R700 for the cable as scrap, |
| 3. Near Hluhluwe game reserve is a TV and radio | | | | but it costs in the region of R100,000 or more to |
| broadcasting station. It has a standby generator to | | | | replace the cable, plus the labour and time to do the |
| keep it on air during a power failure. Local people cut | | | | job. Often these cables are pulled out of the ground |
| through the fence, cut through the steel cage around | | | | with a large vehicle, removing hundreds of meters of |
| the diesel tank, and carried off, in buckets, 2000 litres | | | | cable. |
| of diesel. A guard was hired to patrol the site at | | | | 11. Cats eyes, the reflectors built into the road |
| night. They came again during the day and stole | | | | surface to aid motorists in the mist, are stolen. Some |
| another 2000 litres that same week. There are now | | | | rural areas have almost none left on the road for |
| guards there 24/7 at a cost of R10,000 a month. | | | | kilometers. |
| 4. People are breaking into electrical substations and | | | | 12. Any material left on a building site is stolen within |
| stealing the transformer oil out of the large, high | | | | hours, even if locked behind a razorwire fence. Only |
| voltage transformers, which police say they are | | | | an armed guard can keep it safe. |
| selling as "cooking oil." This results in the transformer | | | | 13. Businesses normally have a razorwire fence, an |
| overheating and burning out, and whole areas lose | | | | armed response alarm system, cctv cameras and |
| electricity supply, including hospitals, restaurants and | | | | infrared beams in the yard. And they are still robbed |
| factories. | | | | regularly. |
| 5. On windy days, fires are started intentionally in the | | | | 14. Water meters, which each house has where the |
| farmlands to burn out white farmers who are slow in | | | | water mains enter their property from the street, |
| relinquishing their farms. The fires are uncontrollable, | | | | are broken off and stolen for the value of the brass |
| and sweep over thousands of hectares of tinder dry | | | | they are made out of. Usually 4 or five are stolen in |
| grasslands, gumtree plantations and sugar cane fields, | | | | quick succession, and home owners wake up in the |
| destroying everything. People, black and white, lose | | | | dead of night with a loud hissing sound and rain falling |
| their lives and possessions in these fires. On Saturday | | | | on their house from a cloudless sky. This happens |
| this week the local radio station reported that there | | | | regularly. |
| were 75 different fires raging simultaneously. 24 | | | | |