South Africa may take drastic steps to curb copper theft

In a drastic move to curb copper theft, South Africa may designate copper as a precious metal. As it is copper theft costs the country about 7 billion rand a year, according to a well known financial newspaper.

According to legal experts, designating copper as precious should make it harder for thieves to sell the stolen commodity.

Theft of this commodity has become such a problem that just last year South African logistics group Transnet spent at least R30-million to replace stolen copper cables, while state-owned power utility Eskom spent about R38-million, the paper said.

Mineral resources director-general Sandile Nogxina said his department would submit proposals to cabinet to amend the Precious Metals Act to include copper as a precious metal.