They are the awesome foursome who spend night and day driving around Nelson Mandela Bay trying to catch cable thieves.
The hard work and long hours they put in were recognised by their bosses when Martin Slabbert, Deon Vosloo, Charles Campher and Paul Smit were awarded the municipality’s Bay Stars team award.
The city’s strategic intervention unit were ecstatic over the announcement at the award ceremony held earlier in December at the Feather Market Centre.
Slabbert said this was finally recognition for their work.
“We have no time off – no weekends off, no braai at a friend’s house. You’re on standby 24 hours a day and are called at all hours of the night.
“We work nights because that’s what the cameras were made for and that’s when criminals work, so that is when you work,” Slabbert said.
“Our wives are understanding and they have to be, which is why young guys don’t want to work this job.”
The mobile surveillance vehicle which tracks cable thieves was purchased for R6m in 2010.
It uses technology such as night-vision cameras with high-power zoom capabilities.
In 2016, the municipality suffered R9m worth of damage at power substations between September and November.
The unit was tasked only with protecting cables in identified “hot-spot” areas, which were mainly Walmer, Newton Park and Motherwell.
Smit said they continuously monitored all criminal activity in the areas they heard about, whether through social media or newspapers.
“We usually approach the cluster commander in the specific policing areas, offering our services and see how we can assist them.
“We usually set two weeks aside to monitor the area.”
Smit said he had been working in electronic surveillance for a long time, but in recent years it had changed drastically, improving the way they worked.
“Back then we had to go into the field with portable equipment, battery packs, laptops and it was a mammoth task, and eventually my director found a piece of equipment that was brought to Port Elizabeth and in the first 10 minutes of testing it, we made four arrests,” Smit said.
The group assisted in 64 cable theft incidents over 9½ months by either foiling the thefts or catching the culprits.
The unit started working as a team in 2010 and its members have almost 100 years in security and law enforcement experience among them.
“In the vehicle, we’ve got range. We can see clearly and very far at night. You can run but you can’t hide.
“While we’re concentrating on our metro assets, we’ll find that something else is transpiring that has nothing to do with the municipality but is of a criminal nature and then we’ll alert the authorities.”
Safety and security executive director Keith Meyer commended the team and said the unit went beyond the call of duty to render services to the residents of the metro.
“I want to commend them for their selfless deeds, and they have done safety and security proud.
“They must keep up the good work and I encourage the entire directorate to follow their example,” Meyer said.
Each team member received an award, a Samsung cellphone and R2,000 cash.