Enterprises all around Belize have joined together in a single fight against copper wire theft. The companies have been secretly battling with the cost of repairing and re-installing lines after thieves blatantly strip the poles to get to their valuable copper.
Amandala spoke to a few of the individuals who have been pilfering the companies’ copper wires. These persons say that no matter how many times the wires are replaced, they will remove them, because things are hard, jobs are scarce, and they have to eat.
Yesterday, Tuesday, April 12, 2011, we spoke with Belize Telemedia’s public relations manager, Anjali Vasquez, who explained that when they joined forces with other major utility departments they collectively realized just how large this issue of copper wire theft has gotten.
Vasquez told us, “I can tell you that over the last four months alone, from what we have experienced, we have had thousands of dollars alone for this year in losses, and that is loss in time and human resources, and of course, the most important thing is the loss in service for our customers”.
BTL has been experiencing the copper wire theft for over five years now and has even resorted, in some cases, to changing their service network to digital networks.
Vasquez said, “We have had repeat offences in different areas of the city and even in the south, where copper has been stolen from the same site over and over again, and eventually, we have had to find new solutions for delivering services to our customers in those areas. It makes no sense to put back the copper wires that will only be stolen again.”
Vasquez explained that on Haulze Street, they have had to replace copper lines three times, on consecutive nights. After the copper wire was stolen on the third occasion, she said, their experts were forced to come up with a better solution. In that case, she informed, they decided to go wireless and were “able to provide customers the very next day” with service. “Actually,” she explained, “each time the copper line was stolen, we replaced it by the very next day. We do understand that this is no longer just your services, but these are necessities in your life - voice and internet are things you require for your businesses, if you need to communicate [in cases of emergency].”
Vasquez said that after “the repeated and blatant theft of copper wire in different areas”and with clear indications that the practice was actually gaining momentum, and not going away, BTL started to reach out to other companies. “What we came to realize,” she said,” is everybody is being affected, every utility, the Broadcasting Association, BWS, BEL, everybody is being affected. As long as you have copper wire as a part of your equipment, you are being affected, and when we look at that from a global perspective, the impact is huge”.
According to the cable thieves, they are stealing the copper for no other reason than to feed their families and to have some money in their pockets, which they lack due to the scarcity of jobs.
A cable thief told us, “If they put up the cable and we don’t have any money, you know we have to take it down back. You know they are not paying us right. You know as they put it back, we will take it down, because we have to eat. If no money is not rolling, then how will the ghetto youth eat? “You have to set
the trend - the rich, the poor, the get-poor; everybody behind here suppose to have their 9 to 5. You know, if they come back here and we no eat, yo know we have to eat. They say if you can’t feed yo dog, eh wah eat yo.
“The ghetto youths just want something to put in their pockets. They already class us as one, although we get a job and are on the job site, they [police] will still come and mess with you, and your boss will get scared, and won’t want to hire an ex-con.”
The men refused to comment on where or to whom they transport the copper for sale.
Information to us is that there is a growing black market for the metal, and that the copper is being shipped into neighboring countries.
We also spoke with 7News director, Jules Vasquez, who told us that he himself has suffered major losses due to copper cable theft, the latest of which was brought on by Hurricane Richard, which caused their cable pole to be blown down. According to Jules, the thieves seized the opportunity to steal the already fallen cable.
BTL’s Vasquez concluded that, “It has become very costly; it’s costly from a money standpoint, but I don’t think that that is the biggest consequence. This type of crime has a rippling effect in that, yes, it affects the company, but at the end of the day, it affects the consumer — consumers become victims of theft. When copper cable is stolen, homes get affected down the line. Imagine having to pick up the phone in an emergency and having a dead line, and you have no idea [of] the reason why; this is a very dangerous thing to inflict on your community.”
Amandala

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