THE Democratic Alliance in Johannesburg says copper cable thieves must face serious charges than ordinary theft because their actions disrupt the country's electricity supply.

"The scourge of cable theft and illegal connections is a significant contributing factor to outages and needs to be eradicated. Cable theft should be treated as economic sabotage as well as the receiving of stolen copper," DA spokesperson for electricity Denis Hunt toldSowetan yesterday.

Hunt said a Johannesburg metro council resolution was passed 10 years ago to move in that direction but nothing had been done since.

He also decried the inefficient manner in which the City Power call centre was handling public complaints about power outages.

"City Power's call centre is a disgrace to the council. We call on the mayor to decentralise control of the call-centres back to the utilities with immediate effect so that the call centre can be put to work as it was intended," Hunt said.

Yesterday, cases were postponed in the Alexandra magistrate's court due to power outages.

Among the postponed cases was the trial against former Nelson Mandela Children's Fund trustee Jeremy Ractliffe, who is facing charges relating to the possession of uncut diamonds. The court building has been in darkness since Friday.

According to City Power, an entity of the City of Johannesburg, the outage was caused by criminals and vandals.

City Power spokesperson Louis Pieterse blamed humans for being responsible for the outage.

"Our transformer, which supplies the Alexandra magistrate's court with electricity, was damaged on Friday. We blame criminals and vandals for the damage," Pieterse said.

"Power will be restored to the magistrate's court today."