By Thapelo Molefe
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has called for infrastructure vandalism and the theft of copper cables and scrap metal to be treated as a human rights crisis, saying that damage to public infrastructure is disrupting access to water, electricity, healthcare, education and transport.
“When infrastructure fails, human rights ultimately fail with it,” the SAHRC said in a policy brief released on Monday.
The Commission said public infrastructure is a key means through which socio-economic rights are realised, with recurring vandalism leaving communities without essential services.
ALSO READ: Lamola: Global solidarity that ended apartheid must help end Palestinian suffering
It said the economic damage caused by copper theft alone has been estimated at more than R45 billion a year.
It said its own investigations had found links between vandalism and service delivery failures.
In June, the OR Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape told the Commission that vandalism and copper theft were significant contributors to the deterioration of water infrastructure and ongoing disruptions to water services.
The Commission also highlighted the impact on electricity, transport, schools and healthcare facilities.
“Cable theft from school electrical infrastructure causes closures, disrupts examinations, poses health and safety risks and disproportionately affects learners who are in some of the most under-resourced educational environments in the country,” the Commission said.
It said the impact was not equally distributed, with poor, rural and informal-settlement communities often having the fewest alternatives when essential services fail.
“Wealthier households are more likely to insulate themselves through generators, boreholes and private security.”
The policy brief also points to the scale of theft from major public infrastructure. It said 4,633km of copper cable was looted from Transnet Freight Rail between the 2020 financial year and October 2023.
However, the Commission noted that there had been an improvement in recent years, with President Cyril Ramaphosa reporting in February that the length of cable stolen from Transnet infrastructure declined from 180km in 2024 to 59km in 2025.
ALSO REAL: Mweli: No personal dispute over textbooks, lifestyle audit reports misleading
The SAHRC also highlighted a June 2026 multidisciplinary investigation involving the South African Police Service, Interpol and Border Police into about 121 tonnes of suspected stolen copper transported across borders. A subsequent operation at City Deep resulted in the seizure of copper valued at about R12.68 million.
It said the illicit metals economy involved more than people physically stealing infrastructure and could include organised criminal networks, receiving dealers and facilitators.
“Effective policy must therefore address the full value chain rather than concentrating enforcement only on persons physically removing infrastructure,” the Commission said.
It called for enforcement to target the entire illicit value chain, including illicit financial flows.
The SAHRC also raised concerns about gaps in the regulation of the scrap-metal industry.
It said draft amendments published for public comment in July 2024 proposed extending registration requirements to sellers of scrap copper, introducing electronic reporting and requiring electronic payments for scrap-metal transactions.
The Commission said these draft regulations had not yet been finalised.
It also noted Cabinet’s announcement in August that it had approved a Second-Hand Goods Amendment Bill, 2026 for publication for public comment, but said it had not identified a gazetted version of the Bill at the time the policy brief was published.
The Commission has called for the Bill to be published without further delay and for the 2024 draft regulations to be finalised with an implementation timetable by 31 December.
It also wants Parliament to recognise infrastructure vandalism as a human rights crisis and convene a joint engagement involving relevant parliamentary committees.
Among its other recommendations, the SAHRC wants stronger coordination between the police, National Prosecuting Authority, Financial Intelligence Centre and regulators to target organised networks involved in infrastructure vandalism and illicit scrap-metal trading.
It has also called for mandatory cashless payments for copper scrap transactions, with electronic records retained for at least five years.
The Commission wants Eskom, Transnet and PRASA to report annually to Parliament on anti-theft infrastructure investment, cable replacement timelines and the impact of infrastructure theft on communities.
It further wants municipalities to include infrastructure vandalism response plans in their Integrated Development Plans, particularly for water and sanitation infrastructure in informal settlements.
ALSO READ: IN PICTURES: DCS seeks more buyers for crafts made by offenders
The SAHRC said businesses operating in the scrap-metal value chain should also verify the lawful origin of materials and maintain transparent records to prevent stolen public infrastructure from entering legitimate markets.
“The destruction may originate in criminal conduct, but the constitutional inquiry does not end there.”
The Commission said it would now engage Parliament, government, law-enforcement agencies, regulators, municipalities, state-owned entities and industry stakeholders on implementing its recommendations.
The call comes as the Gauteng provincial government also warned on Tuesday that vandalism and theft of water infrastructure were threatening water supply, urging residents to report vandalism, theft and suspicious activity involving water infrastructure to their municipalities.
