Foreign national gets 15 years for tampering with essential infrastructure

A 39-YEAR-old foreign national, Eric Chirosisimba, has been sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for damaging and destroying essential infrastructure.

Chirosisimba was found guilty of breaking into telecommunications network towers, stealing batteries, and causing significant damage to property in the Northern Cape and Limpopo in October 2016.

The Northern Cape SAPS Provincial Organised Crime Investigation unit successfully linked him to the crimes through forensic evidence after he was traced and arrested in Tembisa, Gauteng, in February 2024.

The Mahwelereng Regional Court in Mokopane, Limpopo, also imposed a R5,000 fine or two years’ imprisonment for contravening the Immigration Act. This sentence will run concurrently with the 15-year term.

Chirosisimba is still expected to appear in court for the crimes committed in the Northern Cape.

The provincial commissioner of the SAPS in the Northern Cape, Lieutenant-General Koliswa Otola, commended Detective Sergeant Orapeleng Mosala for his diligence on the case, stating: “Crime cannot be fought in silos but requires this [kind of integrated] approach for successful convictions.”

Tampering with and damaging essential infrastructure, Otola added, creates instability and undermines both social and economic development.