By Phephile Motau
The Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Trade has announced a temporary ban on the export of copper and copper alloy scrap as the country grapples with an increase in crime levels associated with the trade.
The market for the precious metal has grown in leaps and bounds in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and is estimated to be in the region of E5 billion.
Minister Manqoba Khumalo on Thursday indicated that the country was prohibiting scrap yards from buying and receiving copper and copper alloys of any kind until further notice.
Khumalo said this was to help curb the increasing theft of copper-based infrastructure in the country. He said the ministry was working with various ministries to address the challenges faced by the country following an increase in the number of theft cases of copper cables and copper-based infrastructure, vandalism, and malicious damage of millions of Emalangeni’s worth of public utilities’ infrastructure.
Khumalo said the damage had resulted in disruption of service provision of some utilities and the citizens they serve, which has become costly, especially for those businesses, and inconveniences the citizens.
Khumalo said some of the consequences of the ongoing theft were those companies like the Eswatini Post and telecommunications Corporation estimate copper theft to amount to over E100 million per year. The company has since been unable to provide internet services in many parts of the country.
He said the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) was also affected as sections of communities had now started experiencing cable theft, leading to blackouts in those areas and businesses. The minister said Eswatini water Water Services Corporation (EWSC) has also reported the theft of copper-based infrastructure.
Khumalo said the roads department has long reported cable theft that has led to street lighting being affected and other private entities and properties continue to report similar incidents at increasing rates.
He said the ministries would work with agencies at ports of entry to ensure that trucks do not leave the borders carrying copper and copper alloy scraps. He said the minister would also be engaging the security forces to ensure compliance with this ban by all concerned.
A report by the Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies released in 2022 looked at the impact of copper theft in South Africa and found that it interrupts electricity and rail transport systems and it imposes economic and social costs several times as high as the value of the actual metal stolen.
The report however indicated that there was no centralised database on the problem, but the available information suggests that the value of the material stolen was around E2 billion in 2020. The cost of repairs to infrastructure and interrupted services was closer to E10 billion.
The following subsections summarise the available information for rail transport and electricity transmission, and then briefly consider the implications for copper fabricators.
– Rail transport South Africa has around 25 000 kilometres of rail under operation. Of that, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) owns 2 280 kilometres, almost exclusively in Gauteng, eThekwini and Cape Town, while Transnet operates the remainder. – – Before the Covid-19 pandemic, rail accounted for a quarter of both freight and public transport in South Africa (excluding airfreight), but the majority of shipping for most mining products and grain.
– Transnet’s efficiency has historically been crucial to maintaining national competitiveness by providing dedicated bulk lines for leading commodity exports (especially coal, iron ore, chrome and manganese) as well as facilities for auto exports.
– Transnet and PRASA argue that theft of cable for electric trains and signalling has vastly slowed their recovery from the Covid-19 lockdown in March and April 2020.
– The share of rail in total freight transport fell from 28% in 2015 to 24% in 2020 and dropped to 20 per cent in December 2021. The share of rail in passenger journeys fell from 60% in 2015 to 26 per cent in 2020, then collapsed to 11 per cent in December 2021.
– In 2019, the railways carried 200 million tonnes in freight, valued at R50 billion; in 2020, the tonnage fell to 180 million for just E40 billion.
– For personal transport, the figures are even more disastrous. In 2019, passengers took a total of 175 million personal rail journeys and paid E2,4 billion. Two years later, they took only 22 million journeys for E0,5 billion.
