The City of Cape Town says it will have to repair close to R1 million’s worth of electricity infrastructure, after it was damaged due to vandalism or illegal connection.
In a statement, the municipality says the most incidents of electricity vandalism and illegal connections that were recorded, in February, occurred in areas such as Hanover Park, Heideveld, Athlone and Manenberg, Atlantis, as well as Woodstock and along Philip Kgosana Drive. Meanwhile, Mitchells Plain recorded the most number of incidents.
Mayco member for energy, Beverley van Reenen, says the
money could have been spent on other services.
The City is trying to keep Cape Town lit but vandalism,
theft and illegal connections cause a lot of damage and unnecessary power
outages. These actions drain our resources from much-needed maintenance and
upgrading work and places the City’s capital programme at risk. A million rand
could rather have been spent on expanding service delivery, as in many cases,
sadly, as soon as the City fixes or replaces vandalised infrastructure, it is
vandalised again. There are some shifting trends visible, such as the number of
incidents in Area North, and also a move of incidents of theft and vandalism
into the more formal metro areas.
Van Reenen called on residents to report any suspicious
activities.
‘’We appeal to residents to assist us by reporting any
suspicious activities near electricity infrastructure to both the South African
Police Service and the City so that we can bring an end to infrastructure theft
and vandalism. We often leave streetlights on in some cases to deter vandals
and where lights are out due to vandalism, the City fixes it as soon as
possible.’’
‘’Sadly, often as soon as lights have been fixed, they are
vandalised again. The City does deploy security and monitor hotspot areas where
possible, but we rely on our communities to alert us and to help us protect
community infrastructure,’’ she added.
Done By: Mitchum George
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