Theft derails electrification plans

The escalating incidence of copper wire theft has set back efforts to electrify Swaziland's impoverished urban townships and isolated pockets of the countryside. "Copper wire is used to ground the transformers as protection against lightning strikes: the energy from lightning is channelled away from the transformer and down the wire into the earth. When the wires are cut off by thieves, the transformers are defenceless. We have lost several of them," said Meshack Kunene, General Manager of Operations at the Swaziland Electricity Board (SEB). Theft of copper wire from power lines and transformers can cause serious damage. "This is the third time this year we have had to replace this wire," said an SEB repairman from his perch atop a transformer near the northeastern hamlet of Luve. Secondary transformers cost about US $2,000, enough to electrify four rural homesteads, while replacing an unprotected primary transformer destroyed by lightning can cost almost $148,000. The Swaziland Post and Telecom Corporation's plans to expand its fixed-line phone service have also been frustrated by copper wire theft. Last year the pilfering grew so acute that at times landline phone service to about one-quarter of the country, mostly rural areas, was disrupted. Swaziland has an unemployment rate of over 40 percent, and what appeared to be stolen copper wire has been tracked to smelters supplying copper to makers of curios, souvenirs and art works. "The wire itself is nonidentifiable, but we hope to trace the persons bringing in the wire to the thefts and make arrests," said a police source. Hiring patrols to guard the nation's electricity system is considered too expensive, so the power parastatal is looking to new technology for answers. "We will soon replace copper wire with a different cable made of an alloy, in which copper is one component: as a substance it is less valuable and desirable to thieves, and cannot be melted down readily for other uses," said Kunene. Meanwhile, SEB has been running a rural education campaign to encourage residents to guard the electrical infrastructure in their area and report suspicious activities. Last year the electricity board recorded a nine-percent rise in the number of customers, primarily because of the ongoing rural electrification plan. Electricity consumption has increased annually for a decade, with years of peak usage corresponding to times of drought, when farmers have to use pumps to irrigate their crops.