ENCA\u2019s Heidi Giokos described the situation in Gauteng as \u201cshocking\u201d with widespread vandalism and theft of electric cables and light bulbs meant for streetlights.<\/p>\n
On the busy road to the Lanseria airport, over 80 streetlights were damaged, which caused a lot of darkness on the road.<\/p>\n
To fix the problem is not trivial. It costs around R10,000 to R15,000 to repair a single street pole and streetlight.<\/p>\n
In one street in Alexandra there were 50 faulty streetlights. The municipality repaired the streetlights, but two days later all of them were vandalised again.<\/p>\n
Despite these challenges, Mpho Moerane, MMC for infrastructure and environmental services in the City of Joburg, vowed to ensure that streetlights are installed on every street across the city.<\/p>\n
Moerane said women and children are not safe in the dark streets of Joburg at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the responsibility to ensure that every street has a streetlight because once we have the streetlights, it reduces crime. It becomes a safer city. We won’t have safer cities unless we have streetlights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Mpho](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Mpho-Moerane-640x426.jpg\")
<\/a>Mpho Moerane, left<\/p><\/div>\n
He called on communities to help the City of Joburg to protect the streetlights against vandalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you drive around Johannesburg, most of the streetlights are vandalised, actually, they have been cut off, mowed down by criminals for whatever reason,\u201d said Moerane.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no point in us doing streetlights, and once we have put the streetlights, people come and vandalize them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the city needs to come up with ways to protect the streetlights and the infrastructure, including the use of technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a problem that we are faced with and we need to ensure that City Power invests in technology that ensures we safeguard our infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commenting on streetlights in Durban, ENCA\u2019s Dasen Thathiah said the situation is equally dire with many streets in the city dogged by inadequate lighting and crime.<\/p>\n
Residents have contacted the city to report the problems, but in many cases these reports fell on deaf ears.<\/p>\n
Head of electricity at eThekwini Municipality, Maxwell Mthembu said they do fix the streetlights with a turnaround time of between three and seven days.<\/p>\n
There is, however, a problem. \u201cImmediately \u2013 the same day – after we have fixed a light, it is off again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mthembu laid the blame at the feet of criminals and drug dealers who vandalise the lights to create a safe operating environment for their criminal activities.<\/p>\n
He said the lights are vandalised so rapidly that the people who requested them to be fixed do not even know that they have been fixed.<\/p>\n
Streetlight vandalism is costing the eThekwini Municipality millions each month. \u201cIn one month, it cost us R66 million to fix all the stolen properties,\u201d Mthembu said.<\/p>\n
He said last week they fixed the streetlights in a long road in Phoenix which cost them over R1 million. Two days later all the lights were broken again.<\/p>\n
Mthembu said the government alone will not be able to solve the problem. \u201cWe need help from the communities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The problem of streetlight vandalism and streets being dumped into darkness has received widespread coverage over the last year.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the City of Cape Town said it was struggling with the theft of streetlights in many neighbourhoods, including Strandfontein Road in Mitchells Plain.<\/p>\n Cape Argus reported<\/strong><\/a> that more than 100 individual streetlights in Strandfontein Road have been damaged in a short time, costing the city R600,000.<\/p>\n The city also had to spend R4.6 million between July and December last year to replace or repair damaged and stolen infrastructure in Philippi, Muizenberg, and Wynberg.<\/p>\n The City of Ekurhuleni is also struggling to cope with the rising number of faulty and vandalised streetlights.<\/p>\n The Boksburg Advertiser reported<\/strong><\/a> in October 2020 they received \u201cscores of complaints from residents that a number of streetlights in their neighbourhoods are not working\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite being reported, some lights have been dysfunctional for months and others have been like that for years.\u201d<\/p>\n City of Ekurhuleni spokesperson, Themba Gadebe, blamed the lockdown, vandalism, and theft for these problems.<\/p>\n The Citizen reported<\/strong><\/a> last month that Primrose Hill residents live in fear because streetlights are not working.<\/p>\n According to these residents, over 200 streetlights are dysfunctional which they say resulted in an increase in theft, burglary, hijackings and poisoning of pets.<\/p>\n Streets across South Africa are dumped into darkness when the sun sets with crime and vandalism spiking in these areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":396597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[35,69769],"class_list":["post-396595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-headline","tag-streetlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":396599,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396595\/revisions\/396599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Broken](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Broken-streetlights-640x426.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow read: Commercial terrorism at Eskom<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"