All is not well in Eden

■ Joe Dreyer

Copper waterpipes and cables have become the focus of a gang of thieves targeting the controversial Eden Gardens residential estate in Tzaneen. For the past few weeks the homeowners were waking up in the early hours of the morning to dogs barking, neighbours screaming and tyres screeching as the gang fled the scene.

On Wednesday morning one of the homewowners awoke to the sound of a vehicle dragging a heavy length of municipal power cable through the streets of the complex. It appeared to witnesses that the gang of four white males and one female were stealing the power cable that supplies municipal power to their estate.

“They had tied the cable to the back of their Citi Golf and they were busy dragging this cable out of the complex to wherever they would spend the rest of the day stripping it for the copper inside to be sold to whichever unscrupulous scrap metals dealer they have contact with,” said one of the homeowners. “Because of this we are now sitting without power and obviously without water too considering that the pumps now have no power either.”

Earlier this week the same gang broke into one of the homes whilst the owners were not home, and completely cleaned out the property, taking with them even the stove and other appliances.

“This is ridiculous because when we bought this stand, it was sold to us as a secure estate and we were told by the developer that once all the stands were sold he would erect a boundary wall. All the stands were sold and we are still waiting for the promised fence but in the meantime we are soft targets being exploited literally every night.”

The homeowner said that a few nights in the previous week their estate had power outages that were not because of loadshedding, and the GTM would visit the site and repair the fault.

“We believe that these frequent outages were as a result of the gang attempting to steal the cable, but failing, and then trying again the following evening. This time they succeeded on Wednesday.”

Earlier in the week the DA Ward Councillor for the area in which the Eden Garden Estates is nestled, Chrizelle Dreyer, contacted the head of the GTM’s electrical department, Freedom Mthetwa, in an attempt to highlight the possibility that one of the main cables supplying power to the estate was lying above ground in the open, and was at risk of being stolen.

Bulletin has in the past reported on the Eden Garden scandal (read those articles here https://farnorthbulletin.co.za/2021/06/20/we-cant-move-into-our-homes/ ).

In summary, the developer at Eden Garden sold package deals at R860 000 plus to the potential buyers, with the promise of a secure estate. Once the buyers started moving into their homes, they noticed that they had no basic amenities and also needed to obtain their own occupancy certificates.

The trouble has since escalated and reached a level where the developer has moved out of his own home within the estate and has allegedly told residents that he cannot build a wall as he has no money.

More on this ongoing story in future publications.