The City of Ekurhuleni has conceded that it’s been challenging to keep up with repairing all the faulty and vandalised street lights in the City.
This came after this publication received scores of complaints from residents that a number of street lights in their neighbourhoods are not working – adding that despite being reported, some lights have been dysfunctional for months and others have been like that for years.
According to metro spokesperson, Themba Gadebe, the lockdown, vandalism and theft are among the biggest challenges which have been impeding the department’s efforts to deal with faulty street lights across the City.
Below are the biggest challenges facing the metro and what it’s been doing to address the obstacles it faces:
Is the metro aware that a number of its street lights is broken or not working properly?
At the moment, the country has been subjected to a pandemic and has been under lockdown. We have had to restructure and reprioritise our regular maintenance schedule. However, under normal circumstances, scouting of defected streetlight infrastructure is done regularly. Even under the Covid-19 emergency conditions, we attend to all complaints that are logged by residents.
Is there a sense of urgency on the metro’s part to deal with the problem?
We are attending to customers’ complaints, though there are challenges from time to time.
Why are the pleas of residents to the municipality to fix its many broken street lights being ignored?
Some residents do not use the correct channels for communicating their pleas to the municipality and are not in possession of reference numbers for their complaints to be followed up. Residents should communicate their complaints to the CoE call centre on 0860 54300 or My COE app.
What causes the said delays in providing immediate attention to faulty street lights?
Priority has been given to customer outages (people without electricity) amid the Covid-19 crisis; however, we are still attending to street light outages and strive to meet our five-day turnaround period for street lights complaints.
What is the total number of council-owned street lights in the city?
The number of council-owned street lights is increasing at a rapid rate as new areas are developing and electricity is being provided to previously disadvantaged communities that historically did not have access to electricity.
Of this total, how many were reported broken?
We have 1 011 outstanding streetlight complaints across the City; however, note that the majority of these outstanding complaints are still within the prescribed service delivery period of five days for street lights.
Residents said the problem had been ongoing for the past couple of years, and they had reported it many times. What has been done to address the problem of street lighting in the City?
A street light maintenance plan has been put in place. The execution has, unfortunately, been affected by the Covid-19 emergency protocols.
The lights in other roads, including Commissioner Street in Boksburg CBD, are on all day and night. Is this not both a waste of electricity and taxpayers’ money?
These are parts of the complaints that we are attending to.
When will the relevant department restore the lights that are on 24/7?
In some cases, complaints are escalated to the wrong area custodians and this results in delays to the rectification of the problem.
Others alleged safety of communities have been compromised because the department is understaffed to attend to all the problems, and that the metro had squandered the budget allocation for the repairs and maintenance of street lights. Is there any element of truth in this statement?
These statements are not true.
Residents say in some areas it takes months of reporting faulty streets lights before repairs are done, but it lasts a few days and then the fault is back and must be reported again. Is this not due to defective workmanship?
Each street light complaint is unique to the affected street light and a blanket/umbrella response or solution cannot be applied to all complaints. An investigation into the particular incident would have to be conducted.
Does the metro have the money needed to carry out the necessary repairs available?
The metro has an allocated budget to attend to street light faults.
How much has been budgeted this financial year for street lights and which areas will be prioritised?
The budget is allocated according to the needs of each particular area.
What is the estimated amount of money needed to clear the backlog and repair any other street lights outages between now and the end of the financial year?
There is the breakdown or unplanned maintenance component of the amount that is highly variable and thus challenging to give an exact figure; however, there is a budget allocated to accommodate any additional or unexpected refurbishment requirements.
What was the previous financial year’s budget allocation for street lighting?
The City has a budget to install new street lights, repair and maintenance which is divided into internal capacity through the City’s employees and use of external service providers. There is no exact figure available at the moment.
Will the metro hire additional electricians to work on the backlog?
The metro is in the process of recruiting additional staff; however, this process has been affected by the pandemic.
Previously, there were reports that the metro had hired a contractor for replacement of existing street lights with solar-powered lights. When will these lights be rolled out?
This project has been rolled out and executed. The problem has been that the solar-powered street lights have been stolen shortly after installation. In some areas, 100 per cent of the installed solar power streetlights have been stolen.
Taking into account that residents feel the City is not doing enough to get the broken lights back on after receiving reports, are people still encouraged to continue reporting faulty street lights?
Residents should report broken street lights. Most areas around the metro have experienced high numbers of streetlight vandalism cases and residents are encouraged to report to council in the event of witnessing such occurrences. This would help bring the perpetrators to justice. The City is considering perimeter lighting at most intersections and most frequently vandalised areas because street light cables and networks are targeted for use in illegal connections.
