Faulty streetlights have been an issue in KwaDukuza for almost a decade.
The hair-pulling frustrations residents have experienced to switch the street lights back on continues as once again the municipality tries to sign up a street light-repair contractor.
As far back as 2015, at a Mayoral Imbizo held at the Ballito library, residents raised the same issues with non-working street lights.
Despite many promises and public meetings with KwaDukuza municipality’s electrical and engineering unit head, Sibusiso Jali, 5 years later the problem is getting worse.
The electrical department has a snag list that is more than 1 000 items long across Sheffield, Salt Rock and Ballito.
According to ward 22 councillor Privi Makhan, more than half the lights in Salt Rock and Sheffield are not working.
A recent audit in Ward 22 revealed that only 28% of street lights were operating – 480 of a total of 666 lights. Inspections by Ballito’s Ward 21 councillor Tommy Du Toit and Ward 6 councillor Tammy Colley recorded 284 and 318 faulty lights respectively. In July last year, Jali told the Courier that a “definite programme to turn the streetlights back on” was being implemented and a contractor had been appointed to deal with the backlog.
That same month Veritas Engineering CEO Glenvin Latchmanan, the firm hired to fix the lights, said that of 102 faulty lights in Ward 6, 73 had been repaired.
Of 414 faulty lights in Ward 22, 253 had been repaired. More than R4 million had been budgeted for repairs in Wards 6 and 22, and R5,5 million was budgeted for the installation of new LED lights in some streets.
Less than a year later as many as 60% of street lights in Ballito do not work, according to Ballito Neighbourhood Watch and Ward 6 committee member Flip Helberg.
“Most of the street lights have not worked for more than 2 years despite reassurances by Jali at the last 3 public meetings that an independent contractor has been appointed. A number of newly installed lights have also stopped working shortly after they were repaired,” said Helberg.
Neither Latchmanan nor KDM have responded to the Courier’s request for clarity on the 2019 contract, including its scope, duration and whether the quality of the work was inspected.
Helberg said BNW were told that they had not followed the correct channels for reporting faulty lights.
“We now have a list of reference numbers from last year and yet most of these lights still have not been repaired. Various organisations have written emails and most have not received replies,” said Helberg.
Years of deferred maintenance spending seem to have led to the current state of disrepair.
In recent years the Auditor General’s reports have disclosed how millions budgeted for available capital projects were not used.
Last year both the electrical and civil engineering units came under fire for spending a mere 6.6% of their annual budget to date, a shortfall of more than R50 million.
In 2018 R15 million of grant funding earmarked for electricity infrastructure upgrades had to be returned to National Treasury, which also refused an application from KDM to roll over R10 million which had not been spent in 2017 and more than R8 million from 2016.
Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers Association (Docrra) chairman, Deon Viljoen told a public meeting recently that following a meeting with KDM executives on June 12, acting mayor Dolly Govender and municipal manager Nhlanhla Mdakane agreed that the repair of streetlights was at the top of the list of problems to be solved in the southern region.
“Sibusiso Jali reported to us that his department was on track with appointing 2 long term (4 years) suppliers to resolve the streetlight issue and that it would commence July 1. We are currently trying to secure a meeting with Jali to understand what is happening.
“There are rumours that the contract has not been finalised and the process has not even started. We have even heard the department is going to do the repairs themselves. All of these are very disappointing and we have given Jali a cut off and will be escalating this to the mayor and municipal manager.”
KDM had not responded at the time of publication.
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