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Syndicates are said to be running rampant in rural parts of the Eastern Cape stealing copper cables and other infrastructure meant to bring communication services to local communities.
Carol Hall, Vodacom's Managing Executive for Operations in the Eastern region, says losses run into millions of rands.
She told Algoa FM News that thieves are regularly vandalising their base stations, stealing cables, batteries and even diesel out of back-up generators.
Hall says this is largely taking place in hard-to-access rural areas of the former Transkei.
She says several measures had to be put in place to mitigate the losses.
"We've changed those copper feeders to aluminium feeders. We've now started dyeing the diesel (and) we're encouraging communities not to buy dyed diesel because that's an indication that it's been stolen. We're appealing to communities to assist us so that we can assist them. Ultimately when these sites go down communities are affected because they have no coverage, they're ultimately at risk from a security perspective," Hall said.
Hall says they've seen a huge increase in this kind of vandalism, not only in the Eastern Cape, but across the country.
"We've actually in some areas had to decommission sites and switch them off. That for us is the hardest part because we're really appealing to communities to report these incidents to the police. We are doing quite a number of other initiatives in the region and nationally, but we're seeing huge volumes coming out of the rural areas," said Hall.
