A business owner is calling on the government to shut down the country’s scrap metal yards until they can be better regulated after thousands of dollars worth of damage was done to his concrete pump truck, allegedly by copper thieves.
Stanford Moss, of Regional Concrete Pumping Service, said after parking his truck in Stapledon Gardens last week, he discovered that “every single piece” of the truck’s metal wiring had been cut out.
“I saw the cables that connect the battery to the engine, those were cut. Then I proceeded to open up the hood of the truck and every single piece of wiring that controlled my automatic systems, the cenures, the temperature, the pressure – every single thing. I mean, gone – chopped out with a hatchet,” Mr Moss said.
“The whole value of the wire that they cut out, if they maybe get $60 for that, that’s a lot. On the other hand, having to replace those wires and the labour and the cost of materials to replace that would be between $5,000 and $6,000.”
To make matters worse, he said, he had been offered a contract for construction in the Family Islands, but with his truck out of commission he is unable to accept the job.
