Lack of municipal service responsible for dog poisoning?

Leon Prinsloo woke up to a very sad and disturbing scenario last week Wednesday. It was a morning like any other, with his normal routine where he would sit and drink his coffee at half past four in the living room. The sun came up and he opened his curtains and front door. Normally his dogs would come running with wagging tails to greet him, but that morning they didn’t come to greet. Leon says this immediately alerted him that something was wrong. He noticed that the smaller dog, Lucky, was ‘sleeping’ and the bigger dog, Hazel, was also ‘sleeping’. He also noticed that his motorbike had been moved from its parking spot. The realisation hit him that his dogs may have been poisoned. Upon inspection of the dogs, he confirmed that both were dead. He called the police, who investigated the scene and took DNA samples.

Leon lives in Hoog Street and says that he attributes this tragedy to a lack of service on the municipality’s part. He has been without a streetlight for nine years. They erected a new pole after it fell into his yard, but they never installed LED lights. He has been complaining and has reported it numerous times to the municipality. “My yard is dark and I believe that is the main reason or rather one of the contributing factors why it is unsafe due to the municipality’s bad service. The whole of Hoog Street’s lights were changed to LED lights, but mine was skipped. Every time I ask them when they are going to fix my streetlight, they say they don’t have stock. To me, that is an unacceptable excuse. I run my business from home and this makes it easier for perpetrators to enter my property, because the lights don’t work. All the neighbours are complaining about the same issue,” Leon concluded.

DA Councillor Magda Viktor is aware of the broken streetlight and has reported it numerous times to the relevant people. “I have even taken the workers to the streetlight and even though it’s not my ward, I am more than willing to assist. Unfortunately, the streetlight has not been repaired as yet.”
The police have confirmed that several cases of dog poisonings have occurred in the past couple of months, especially where suspects have tried to steal vehicles.
The Vryheid Herald has contacted AbaQulusi Local Municipality regarding the issue of streetlights that don’t work, but to no avail. On Monday morning, Leon confirmed that the streetlight is still not working, after he reported it once again after the incident with his dogs.

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