While residents acknowledge the efforts being made to restore public lighting across the city, concerns have been raised about vandalism and streetlights that are left on day and night in Witfield and surrounding areas.
Ward 33 Clr Ashley Hoods told the Boksburg Advertiser that he and other residents were delighted to see municipal workers replacing the broken lights, but completely baffled to notice the lights have been on day and night for the past couple of weeks.
Hoods questioned the city’s failure to do its part in saving electricity amidst the load reduction to protect the power utility, Eskom.
Following complaints about vandals targeting the lighting system in the area, this publication visited Witfield last week. We noticed most of the now working lights, particularly along Main Street, were burning during the day.
The City of Ekurhuleni has not yet responded to questions about the energy waste, so it is not clear what the problem is, or when it will be fixed.
Hoods pointed out that some of the recently repaired lights were being targeted by vandals.
He called on the city and law enforcement agencies to crack down on those responsible for robbing the city of the public lighting infrastructure.
Also Read: Vandalism of streetlights ‘an act of terror’
“The energy division has been working on Main Street for the past few days to fix the lights. On July 15, the lights were on, but on the next morning (July 16) some lights were vandalised again.
“This is frustrating and demoralising because the depot cannot fix these lights every other day.
“I am pleading with everyone, especially our security companies, to keep an eye out at night for the people on the street that go around stealing and tampering with our much-needed infrastructure.”
Possible sabotage
Hoods described the attack on the lighting system as economic sabotage.
“This is how you bankrupt a municipality. Can you imagine this happening across the entire city?
“Budgets to fix lights depleted within the first few months of the financial year. When they fix it again, they have thousands of lights to fix. They fix it and it’s broken within a few days. It then stays off for another year.”
Questions of a possible ongoing streetlight theft syndicate and inside job are not ruled out. Hence, the ward councillor and other concerned residents have called on the city to conduct internal investigations and to collaborate with specialised police units to investigate and fight infrastructure theft.
Additional lights
The ward councillor has also submitted a petition to the council, on behalf of the residents of Comet Village, for additional high mast lights. This came after residents of the area complained about a high prevalence of crime and requested additional lighting to curb these incidents.
Streetlights repairs
Following a series of complaints about poor street lighting over the past couple of years, the city has recently embarked on a mass repair of streetlights across the city.
The city remains concerned about the high number of vandalism of critical essential services infrastructure.
Records revealed that the city from the beginning of June to July 12, 2024, received 1 500 streetlights complaints in Benoni alone.
The city pointed out that the work adds to the normal maintenance, which currently includes the replacement of high-pressure sodium globes with LED lights that have a longer lifespan and consume less energy.
So far, over 5 000 lights and 301 high mast lights have been converted to LED in Benoni.
