President Jacob Zuma has signed into law the Criminal Matters Amendment Act‚ 2015‚ which amends the Criminal Procedure Act‚ 1977 and‚ which it is hoped‚ will help curb cable theft among other infrastructure-related crimes. The amendments provide for changes to the law pertaining to infrastructure-related offences by making stricter provisions for the granting of bail‚ the sentencing of offenders and creating a new offence to criminalise damage to‚ tampering with or destruction of essential infrastructure which may interfere with the provision of basic services to the public.The Act also aims to create a new offence relating to the essential infrastructure as well as amend the Prevention of Organised Crime Act‚ 1998‚ so as to insert a new offence in Schedule 1 to the Act and to provide for matters connected therewith.The trade union federation Cosatu said recently it believed that the legislation was a badly needed and long overdue intervention to try to stem the tide of cable and other essential public infrastructure theft and vandalism in South Africa.“Cable and other essential infrastructure theft have severely undermined the government's ability to deliver electricity‚ water and other badly needed services to the people‚” Cosatu said...