Theft and vandalism strips the City’s infrastructure

Joburg Roads Agency said it was facing the growing scourge of theft and vandalism across the city, which had resulted in losses amounting to about R57.46 million.

“That is the theft of metal products only, including brackets, railings… and [storm water drains] – they actually break the concrete to get those two or three strips of reinforcement metal,” said the agency’s head of regional operations, Hendrik van Tonder.

According to Van Tonder, criminals had stolen all the municipality’s metal infrastructural components, and had even begun dismantling overhead signs and gantries on highways.

This had resulted in structural challenges for the agency as the integrity of infrastructure was being comprised, posing a danger to the public, he added.

These included exposed manholes, overhead signs that had been tampered and with potentially falling, disruptions to traffic signals resulting in possible increases in accidents, and no protection for vehicles that veer over the edge of motorways due to missing guardrails.

Darryll Thomas, the entity’s head of mobility and freight, said in the past five or six years vandalism and theft became more evident because traffic signals, which were most visible to the public and had a significant impact, were being targeted.

“What’s happened in… recent years, particularly in the last two or three…, [is] vandalism has spread to all infrastructure in Johannesburg – and it’s a national thing… we’re not just talking about Johannesburg here,” said Thomas

“… We’re still getting our traffic signal poles cut down, our cables pinched… but these vandals have now moved on to our streets and our highways.”

During a media tour of severely affected areas, the true extent of vandalism and theft was exposed. The M1, M2 and Soweto highways were hardest hit, being stripped of all metal infrastructure. The entity added that organised crime syndicates were spreading across the city.

Metro police, accompanying the roads agency and the media, arrested two suspects on Wemmer Pan Road who were in possession of metal items and excavated poles. Chief superintendent Wayne Minnaar said the suspects would be charged with malicious damage to municipal property and theft.

Metro police also discovered a street vendor inside a manhole on the centre island at the intersection of Main Reef Road and Commando Street, where he was storing ice and cold drinks.

However, the roads agency is set to tackle the problem. In a bid to prevent traffic lights from being cut down to access their copper wire, the roads agency had installed CCTV cameras and sensors at its most vandalised intersections which send SMS alerts to a security company when the traffic light is tampered with.

However, Thomas said curbing the problem in vast areas like freeways where perpetrators moved from one spot to another, proved more challenging.

He said the roads agency had initiated an Infrastructure Protection Watch in collaboration with other municipal entities and police to ensure a more effective response.

Further, the roads agency had also resorted to replacing all metal products with alternative materials including plastic and fibreglass – which had no financial value on the black market.

The public could report incidents of vandalism and theft of municipal infrastructure to the city council’s call centre 086 056 2874 or to the police.