A 38-year-old Harare vagrant will rue the day he siphoned 10 litres of oil from a Zesa transformer after he was slapped with the mandatory 10-year jail term by provincial magistrate Tendai Mahwe yesterday.
An unemployed Isaac Sithole, who resided along Mukuvisi River, was on August 15 this year arrested by police officers patrolling along the river banks in search of society’s misfits.
The officers seized from Sithole 10 litres of transformer oil he had stolen from a Zesa transformer along Samora Machel Avenue in Eastlea, Harare.
Sithole was charged with contravening section 60A (3) (a) of the Electricity Act which criminalises tampering with any apparatus for generating, transmitting, distributing or supplying electricity with the result that any supply of electricity is interrupted or cut off.
He pleaded guilty to stealing 50 litres of oil valued at $250.
Sithole also admitted before the magistrate having led police officers to his buyers at Mbare Market where 40 litres of the same commodity was recovered.
The State urged the court to consider the mandatory jail term after Sithole failed to persuade the court for leniency by providing extenuating circumstances.
