Mitchell's Plain worst affected area of vandalism and theft of streetlight - CoCT

The City of Cape Town has raised concerns about the number of incidents reported regarding theft and vandalism of streetlights across the metro.

COURTESY: CoCT


According to the municipality, Mitchell’s Plain is one of the worst affected areas, with more than 10 000 fault requests logged between January 2023 and February 2024. Of these, about 3 000 (31%) pertained to repeated vandalised infrastructure like poles and theft.

Mayco Member for Energy, Beverley van Reenen, says Gugulethu, Wynberg, Muizenberg and Philippi, which falls under Area South, is also of concern.

INFO: CoCT


She was in Westridge, recently to inspect recent repairs to streetlights.

‘’Our energy teams are operating under abnormal circumstances. The extreme impact of load-shedding on our power infrastructure (that was not designed for load-shedding) as well as the contribution of load-shedding to the increase of theft and vandalism, have led to extremely negative impacts and backlogs of service requests, especially single streetlight outages. Many innovative interventions are being investigated, while operational changes are under way to enhance service delivery and turnaround times where required and also to eradicate backlogs as fast as possible. At the heart of this lies the unprecedented impact of load-shedding-driven vandalism and the impact on maintenance capabilities, costs and human resources. If we stand together as a City, with our communities, we can bring the change that will help to protect our community infrastructure and enhance service delivery,’’ said Beverley van Reenen, MMC for Energy.

 

Done By: Mitchum George

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