By Dideka Njemla
While many Rhodes students were away for the mid-year break, cable thieves stole copper worth more than R250 000 from the roof of the university’s Africa Media Matrix building — home to Grocott’s Mail — in Prince Alfred Street.
“We noticed that the trap door outside was frequently left open. We immediately thought it was the people who cleaned the roof gutters,” said Fikile Samson, media technology and operations manager for the School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS). She said that a staff member from the adjacent Department of Chemistry building had then informed JMS general worker, Vuyo Nyezwa, about the suspicious individuals regularly seen on the roof at 11am every day.
After being alerted, Samson immediately reported the suspicious activity to the Campus Protection Unit (CPU). “After I notified CPU on Monday 7 July, they said they would check with maintenance to find out if the alleged gutter cleaners were legitimate,” said Samson. She received no response from CPU on that day.
The next day, Samson was told by a colleague that the air conditioners at the Africa Media Matrix were faulty. “The aircon in the server room was not working and that the equipment was heating up. Upon investigation, my colleague, Viwe Ngxulelo, discovered that the copper pipes were stolen,” she said.
Ngxulelo, who is JMS multimedia and web developer, said the copper theft was brought to his attention after the Rhodes IT team inspected the building. “IT immediately suspected tampering, given the aircons were recently checked and repaired. So, they reached out to the air conditioning repair technician for assistance.” Ngxulelo said the technicians did not find any faults inside the buildings, which led them to the roof, where the damage was identified. “After IT reported to CPU, the police were called. One of the thieves was arrested with the help of a staff driver, who recognised him.”
Ngxulelo added, “No one would suspect that the aircons aren’t working in winter. We suspect that these criminals planned this robbery and acted deliberately.” He noted that the theft would have remained undetected had it not been for the server room.
According to the technician who repaired the damage, the copper theft went on for days before the criminals were caught. “They started on Saturday 5 July and continued until Tuesday 8 July. They had damaged the copper into small pieces that made it impossible to reuse for repairs.”
He said, “There has been a spike in the number of air-condition unit robberies in Makhanda. Criminals are not only targeting the copper pipes but also the actual air-conditioning unit because of the amount of copper found inside them. But we are unsure if these incidents are all linked or not.”
