Thousands of kilogrammes of Cable wires have been rescued the past few weeks through tipsters after being vandalised by irresponsible people.

Malawi communities have started feeling the pinch of tolerating thugs whom they live with in the comunities but whose job is nothing but pulling out underground telephone wires.
Last week 900 kilogrammes were rescued in Blantyre'swestern shanty township of Mpemba through a tip from a well wisher.
And another load was rescued at a road way place called Zalewa which connects Blantyre and the Capital City Lilongwe, courtesy of another tipster.
Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) anti vandalism unit is ow the busiest of all departments day and night fighting the ruffians.
In other places inBlantre City called Mbwelera and Namiwawa, another place called Nkopola in the lake shore district of Mangochi, Lunzu township welknown for prostitution are some of the latest places hit by the ruffians.
They are slowly rediscovering what their responsibilities are; particularly when it comes to the safeguarding of national assets.
MTL has started splashing money to thetipsters to reward for a good job

Already many tipsters have had their lives overturned after moon-lighting the company about vandals terrorizing the company’s property.

The vandals export the cables where it is believed, it is smelted into high electricity conductors. Cables wires are made from copper which is regarded as the best conductor of electricity.

Colonel Kaleke said MTL values the assistance various communities are rendering to the company in the middle of then anti vandalism battle.
Kaleke who was speaking on authority from Head of Communications and Marketing Lorraine Phiri as well as Public Relations Officer Tina Chitaukali Dasi disclosed that recently they rewarded a Lilongwe man with K250, 000 for providing useful information that led to the rescue of cables and the arrest of suspects.
“This war is unconventional in that you would not know which direction the enemy will attack next and you will not know who is likely to be the casualty then.
“But from April last year, the fight against vandalism has taken a serious dimension, we have prosecuted some of their ring leaders, we have pursued and destroyed their operatives particularly in the city of Blantyre,” he said.
“We have gained big mileage over them because with the help of the police we are having a list of the most wanted vandals, they are on the run but we will catch them because we have their information,” said Kaleke.
In May last year the colonel pursued suspected traders who were trafficking cables worthy K20million to South Africa. They were arrested and have been answering to charges of vandalizing state property and being found in possession of stolen materials.
Kaleke said the rewards of K40, 000 up to K250, 000 are only award to successful tip depending on the quantity of the cables and success of the follow up operation.
“To avoid false implication we only reward those who give successful tips,” he said.
‘We have secret codes, we encode the tipsters in a manner that can make us easily reach back to them, once the information proves to be real leading to successful pursuance of the suspects,” he said.
When asked how much money spent so far in rewarding Phiri and Dasi asked for time.
Phiri said: “There is a committee which is backing up the anti vandalism fight, so my office does not have some information yet.”
Kaleke answering the same question said the company does not want to alarm people with figures but will continue to dish out the money on successful tips until the vandals are defeated.
In a separate interview Southern Region Police Public Relations Officer Davie Chingwalu said Blantyre is the heavily hit by cable theft because the trade was discovered by residents of the city.
Chingwalu said the biggest set back in the fight against cable vandalism is the court sentences which he described as lenient.
“Cable crime is funny in away that whenever we arrest a cable vandal, lawyers fill our offices seeking to bail him out almost immediately.
“This makes us ask questions what is special with the cable vandals that lawyers swarm for them, however we assure MTL that we will support them dealing with the crime,” he said.
Chingwalu said most times courts only give the vandals four years and that their cases drag unnecessarily.
“I think it is not fair that some one who has killed communication in a big area like Machinjiri should be released on bail unconditionally,” he said.
Chingwalu also thanked colonel Kaleke for making their job easier through all kinds of innovations aimed at carrying out successful operations against the ruffians.
He however said in earlier investigations they discovered that some MTL employees have been part of the vandals. He made a mention of several cases in Mulanje where MTL employees in the districts were implicated and nabbed being behind the scourge.
There are several serious cases in court right now, recently we caught a man who piled the cables in sacks about to export them, he confessed that this was his third trip, he had successfully done that in two previous occasions, he is on bail,” said Chingwalu.
Kaleke said MTL cables are usually installed in a manner that can make their engineers find it easy during repairs.
He said most of the culprits hide behind scrap metals where they pack the cables inside the metals when exporting.
Currently the whole Machinjiri from the Round-about, up to South Lunzu is having no ground lines as the company is yet to replace cables which were vandalized two years ago.
According to MTL the cables are difficult to replace because they are manufactured in India and the costs of making them available are sky high. One cable can carry up to one thousand customers.
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