Vandalism and cable theft impact streetlights repairs – CoE
“The limited staff complement prioritises attending electricity outages over fixing of streetlights, which results in delays in attending to streetlights,” said Zweli Dlamini.
The City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) relies on community reports to identify and promptly fix faulty streetlights.
According to Zweli Dlamini, metro spokesperson, the community’s reports are in addition to other service interruption alert platforms such as the call centre and the mobile CoE app.
“However, when streetlights are constantly damaged by the community through vandalism, illegal connections and cable theft, the City finds it difficult to keep up with the high demand to repeatedly fix same streetlights,” said Dlamini.
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“This is in the context of limited government resources and a rotational shift system necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to these incidents of vandalism, illegal connections and cable theft, the normal seven-day turnaround to attend to streetlight queries is negatively affected.”
Dlamini added that furthermore, the limited staff complement prioritises attending electricity outages over fixing of streetlights, which results in delays in attending to streetlights.
“Nevertheless, the City continues to conduct regular security patrols and surveillance but this is not sustainable without the residents’ contribution to safeguarding their electrical infrastructure.
“Customers are encouraged to report all electricity-related issues through its call centre on 0860 543 000 or through the My CoE App.”
Contact the newsroom by emailing: Marietta Lombard (Editor) germistoncitynews@caxton.co.za, or (Journalists) Busi Vilakazi busiv@caxton.co.za , and Lebogang Sekgwama lebogangs@caxton.co.za.
