Cape Town – The Metal Recyclers Association (MRA) says the ban imposed on export of copper scrap won’t work after Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel's announcement that there will be a six-month ban imposed on export of copper scrap as South Africa fights theft.
The ban by Patel was a result of economic damage of ongoing theft and vandalism has been estimated at R47-billion and has amplified both load shedding and the disruption of freight and passenger rail services.
Speaking on SAFM, MRA’s trade advisor, Donald Mackay, said some of the recommendations made by the government were quite important, for example banning of scrap metals for cash is a good idea and the idea to track down the machinery used to melt the copper down to be sold and issuing of permits on scrap metal companies.
“It would have been good also if the government had assisted all those companies that are owning copper machines to register those machines so that we can know where all that equipment is situated.
“Because if copper cable is stolen it would appear to leave the country melted down and shared into small pieces, and therefore that equipment would be tracked quickly.
“Those kind of products that are melted down are not part of the export ban but to track places where they are being processed it’s going to assist us,” Mackay said.
He said another challenging issue is that most criminal enterprises have unreliable book keeping that makes it hard to track down the volume of stolen copper items.
“Transnet has records of what was stolen and the value costs of those missing items. It would be very good if other state-owned companies did that so that we can have the scale of the problem which is a bit difficult at the moment,” he said.
He also said that over the past 10 years the volumes of scrap metal exports has dropped drastically and the ban won’t have much impact.
Meanwhile in a statement, Patel, said that South Africa has an extensive network of electricity and Telkom cables, rail tracks and rail cables, and municipal infrastructure such as traffic lights and drain covers.
“It is practically impossible to police all of this infrastructure, all of the time. The measures approved by Cabinet, therefore seek to reduce the demand for scrap metal from the lucrative global market, while simultaneously disrupting criminals’ transport and logistics networks,” Patel added.