The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) wants scrap metal dealers to stop paying cash for copper. In a policy brief launched on 21 September 2026, the commission proposed that the Second-Hand Goods Act be amended so that every copper scrap transaction is paid electronically, with records kept for at least five years.
The brief, titled “Infrastructure Vandalism as a Human Rights Crisis”, was announced in a media statement from the commission. It treats cable and scrap metal theft as a threat to constitutional rights, not only as a crime against the owners of the stolen material.
## What the commission wants changed
The SAHRC says cash is the weak point in the trade. “Cash transactions reduce traceability and can facilitate the movement of stolen metal through apparently legitimate transactions,” according to the brief. Payment by bank transfer, card or another electronic method leaves a record of who was paid, when and how much, which cash does not.
The cashless rule is one of several recommendations. The commission also asks for:
– the urgent completion of outstanding regulatory reforms;
, better traceability of transactions and verification of sellers;
, enforcement aimed at the whole illicit value chain, including organised networks and receiving dealers;
, human-rights due diligence by private companies in the scrap metal industry.
Reporting on the brief, Inside Politics added that the commission wants the draft regulations on registration in the scrap metal industry finalised and the Second-Hand Goods Amendment Bill published without delay. It also wants utilities to report to Parliament every year on what they spend on anti-theft measures.
## The cost of the theft
The brief uses an estimate from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition that copper theft causes about R45 billion in economic damage a year. BusinessTech reported that thousands of kilometres of copper cable have been stolen from state entities such as Eskom and Transnet, at a cost of hundreds of millions of rands, and that a 2026 crime intelligence report flagged 121 tonnes of suspected stolen copper moved out of the country.
The figures for Transnet Freight Rail, as reported by Inside Politics, show how large the losses have been and how they have moved. Between 2020 and October 2023, 4,633 km of copper cable was stolen from the network. The amount stolen fell to 180 km in 2024 and 59 km in 2025.
The commission’s argument is that the damage does not stop at the balance sheet. It says communities that lose water because a pump station has been stripped, or lose essential services because electricity infrastructure has been vandalised, are not experiencing “a mere inconvenience”. Human-rights obligations arise, it says, when the state fails to prevent foreseeable harm and to protect vulnerable communities.
## Where the law stands
The Second-Hand Goods Act of 2009 already requires dealers to register with the South African Police Service. Efforts to tighten the rules for the metals trade have been under way for several years. The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition started a programme against infrastructure damage on 30 November 2022, and in November 2023 the Civilian Secretariat for Police gazetted draft amendments to the regulations. According to a summary by the SA Legal Academy, those drafts would extend registration to the buyers and sellers of semi-finished metal products and restrict trade in copper and semi-finished copper products to registered parties. Comments closed on 8 December 2023.
The cashless proposal now depends on the Second-Hand Goods Amendment Bill. The SAHRC notes that Cabinet announced a proposed bill on 26 August 2026, but says it had not identified a gazetted version when it published its brief. Until a bill is gazetted, there is no text for the public or Parliament to comment on, and no cashless requirement in law.
## What dealers would face
For dealers, a copper-only rule would still mean paying sellers by transfer or card rather than in cash, and keeping payment records for five years. As BusinessTech reported the proposal, the payment trail would let the Financial Intelligence Centre monitor suspicious patterns in scrap metal transactions.
Nothing in the brief is binding. It is a set of recommendations, and the detail of any cashless requirement, including which metals it would cover and how sellers without bank accounts would be paid, will be settled only when the bill is published and debated. Businesses in the recycling and metals trade can follow the process through the regulatory policy and energy and infrastructure sections of this site, and small operators will find related coverage in SME and entrepreneurship.
