Lights out for Durban streets
Speaking to the Northglen News last week, uMhlanga ward councillor, Heinz De Boer said there wasn't a single neighbourhood that hadn't been affected by faulty or broken street lights.
INACTIVE or defective street lights are a major issue across the City of Durban, this according to uMhlanga ward councillor, Heinz de Boer.
Speaking to the Northglen News last week, De Boer said there wasn’t a single neighbourhood that hadn’t been affected.
“I would estimate that there is between 200 and 300 street lights that are out in my ward alone,” he said.
While cable theft was a major issue in the south of Durban, he said the majority of the defective street lights in the north was due to technical faults.
Motorists crashing into the street light poles was also a major issue, he said. So much so, that the councillor said he and fellow Democratic Alliance officials would be advocating for the city to change its bylaws so that citizens who damage municipal property would be billed for the damage.
“The City has subcontractors who are employed to do the repairs, but not as many as we used to. It can take anywhere between three and six months for a street light to be repaired. It is very, very frustrating,” he said.
It was a concern, said De Boer as dark areas are known to encourage criminal activity.
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What was exasperating the problem further, he said was that the City’s contract system, which had created issues with the consistency in spare parts.
“The City will buy a bulk of spares of say a hundred thousand from supplier A and then when the contact expired they have to give the tender to a new company that produces different types of bulbs or other components that do not fit with current infrastructure,” he said
“It is a bit of a mess, and people are understandably very angry he said.
The eThekwini Municipality had not commented by the time of publication.
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