Gauteng authorities closing in on kingpins who've created a market to purchase stolen govt infrastructure

JOHANNESBURG - The Gauteng government is sure that scrapyard businesses are at the source of the province’s vandalised infrastructure.

It said that law enforcement agencies were closing in on kingpins who had created a market to purchase stolen government infrastructure.

Questions were raised in the Gauteng Legislature on Tuesday about the deteriorating state of infrastructure in the province, which President Cyril Ramaphosa recently alluded to.

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said it was getting too expensive for the provincial government and many municipalities to keep on replacing stolen or vandalised infrastructure.

"We are working very hard that if we can conclude these 450 kingpins, analyse them and arrest them then we can be free, including the scrapyard market because it is the source of the destruction of our province."