A Man electrocuted while stealing electricity cables.

As the country is currently struggling to deal with copper cable theft, which has been on the rise in
the wake of an economic meltdown. Peter Ncube (25) Of Lusumbami village Hwange, was
electrocuted to death while stealing cooper cables at Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL)
Opencast workshops.
According to the Matebeleland Police spokesperson Inspector Glory Banda, Ncube went to a HCCL
Opencast workshop and cut out two cables from unconnected cables just outside the transformer
site fence.
“He then entered inside the fence and started cutting from inside another cable which was also
unconnected. It is alleged that the other cable was too close to the live transformer which led the
deceased to be electrocuted,” said Banda.
Stealing copper cables is a serious offence which may lead to a 10 year jail sentence.
Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi once appealed to members of the public from stealing copper
cables and thanked members of the parliament who debated on the Copper Amendment Bill.
“I want to thank members who debated the Copper Amendment Bill, their contributions and
support to ensure that we come up with a maximum sentence to those who vandalise our copper
cables and those who do not have the requisite papers to deal with copper. We value the support
that has been offered, the aim really being to ensure that we up legislative measures that will act as
deterrence to those that would want to deal in copper, or to vandalise our infrastructure”.