The municipality is currently experiencing high volume incidences of theft and vandalism on the municipal infrastructure.
“This has negative consequences on the ability of the municipality to provide sustainable and continuous services to the communities of Emalahleni,” said municipal spokesperson Mr Lebo Mofokeng.
He said the municipal infrastructure is being targeted wherein metal bearing components and buildings are being targeted by vandals within the community for resale to scrap metal dealers at the expense of service delivery.
Communities are being inconvenienced and deprived of basic services due to the theft and vandalism of water plants, sewer plants, and electrical substations including distribution equipment.
Cables and pipes are critical components for ensuring communities receive basic services and damage and theft of these components is considered acts of sabotage against the affected communities.
“The damage and theft of the distribution equipment result in communities being without services for prolonged periods.”
The environment is also adversely affected as sewer spillages result in environmental disasters that cause contamination of rivers and dams which serves as the water source for communities.
“The acts of theft and vandalism also harm the economy of the municipality and its citizenry. Businesses cannot operate due to service interruptions and experience huge financial losses during these downtimes and the municipality loses revenue.”
The social impact is also not conducive for communities as health facilities and educational facilities have to cease operations as basic services are critical for these institutions to operate optimally and provide services to the communities.
The replacement costs of the infrastructure are currently estimated into millions of rands that need to be funded from municipal coffers which had not been budgeted for.
This also hampers the municipality in its mandate of expanding basic services to communities that are in desperate need of these basic services.
The municipality is appealing to residents to assist the municipality in reporting such incidences of theft and vandalism of its infrastructure which at the current rate has the potential to collapse the ability of the municipality to provide its communities with the necessary basic services and grow the municipality’s economy and attract investment to the city thereby creating jobs and revenue for the municipality.
The theft and vandalism of municipal infrastructure is a criminal offence that carries a hefty sentence when convicted.
The municipality is urging communities to report any acts of theft or vandalism as a matter of urgency and all information related thereto will be treated with the strictest confidentiality.
