Telkom has offered a reward for any information that leads to the arrest of persons that sabotaged a number of the telco’s facilities yesterday.

Telkom infrastructure in Midrand, Pretoria West, Silverton, Durban, Pinetown, Pietermatitzburg, Makhado and Messina have been damaged in what the telco is calling an act of sabotage.

Telkom group executive for communication, Jacqui O’ Sullivan, alleged that this was not an act of vandalism and that the person, or persons, responsible “knew what they were doing”.

“Cables have been cut to cause maximum damage. Entire street distribution cabinets, which are located in neighbourhoods to serve multiple streets at a time, have been ripped apart and in a few instances yesterday, set on fire,” explained O’Sullivan.

To further illustrate that this wasn’t an act of opportunistic vandalism, Telkom has said that specialised equipment would have been needed, especially to access the fibre cables which were damaged.

In light of this sabotage to its infrastructure, Telkom chief executive officer Sipho Maskeo has offered a reward of R500 000 for any information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of the saboteurs.

Telkom has urged anybody with information to contact the Telkom crime reporting line on the toll-free number 0800 124 000.

Telkom customers who are affected by the outage caused by the damage have been asked to remain paitent. “We apologise to our customers who have been inconvenienced by this senseless sabotage. We are working to repair the damage as quickly as possible,” O’Sullivan said.

[Source – Telkom] [Image – SA BY 2.0 Bastian]