Street lights repeatedly vandalised

A Beacon Valley woman was forced to raise the alarm after a man approached her at her garage gate, where the street lights were off, plunging the area into darkness at about 4am.

Her father Erefaan Salie spoke out about vandalised street lighting at a public Ward 116 meeting with Solomon Philander, ward councillor and chairman of Sub-council 12, on Thursday August 25.

He was hijacked many years ago also when the street lights were out.

He logged a C3 notification on June 30 and received a SMS acknowledgement; received a service request status update on July 3; and it was closed on August 4.

“The lights have still not been fixed,” he said.

Marawieyah Salie raised an alarm but when Mr Salie got outside the stranger was missing. They could not see anything.

Earlier that day Mitchell’s Plain Sub-council 12 asked City of Cape Town’s electricity department to report on how many times they have been called out to have the same street lights fixed or replaced.

Mr Philander raised this question during their monthly sub-council meeting on Thursday August 25.

“The reality we see everyday in our communities, in Ward 116, is an attack on City infrastructure, these would include lights on Wanderers, Morgenster, Imperial , AZ Berman and Alpine roads being off alternate nights,” he said.

He said council officials came out to fix street lights but had to return two days later.

Criminals in Ward 92 were switching off electricity sub-stations because they need to do crime in darkness, he said.

"We are just breaking our place down bit-for-bit-for-bit and we forget the budget is not an endless budget to repair our infrastructure.

“How much money have we spent in additional to what was planned to fix infrastructure.

“To show that vandalism is the core problem, it is also about turf and it is important for them not to have lights to do what they need to do. Recently there has been lots of shooting in Beacon Valley, why do we think the lights are not working,” he said.

Sub-council manager Mcebisi Johnson Fetu said reporting broken street lights was a collective issue.

He said that the correct channels to report C3 notifications had to be followed and had to be submitted to ensure complaints were addressed.

Opposition political party proportional representation (PR) councillor Saul Markgraff, for the Good party, said that it was a burden on residents to use their data and resources to photograph, report and log C3 notifications and were not receiving the service they deserve.

He asked that inspectors or officials go around to check which street lights were not working and ensure that assigned notifications were indeed closed.

“This is using our community’s money, data costs to log C3 notifications but they get nothing in return. They want somebody who doesn’t have data and needs that light to work tomorrow morning when they go to work. I feel this is totally unfair,” he said.

Mr Markgraff said every month the same problems were raised at meetings and that there is no progression.

He said the C3 notification list was not a true reflection of what was happening in Mitchell’s Plain.

“Enough is now enough. We are grown people, representatives of this community. To be accountable to our people. We need to see your inspectors in the area, who can identify them and we can see progression,” he said.

Tafelsig councillor Washiela Harris, for Ward 82, said: “It is our very own community who are doing this to the officials, who come to fix what is broken in our wards”.

She told of an encounter where the criminals wore balaclavas and attacked officials and stole cables from a City truck, when they came out to replace street lights.

Lentegeur councillor Avron Plaatjies, councillor for Ward 76, complimented the electricity team for ensuring that street lights were fixed as soon as it was reported.

He asked that the department consider a different light design to “kill two birds with one stone” as vandalism was continuously happening.

City electricity services official Ismail Green said they were doing their best to inspect and report broken street lights.

Cape Coloured Congress (CCC) PR councillor Duwayne Jacobs said he raised the issue with his community and that the City should put measures in place to prevent vandalism.

He asked whether the City would put security officers to watch that spot and catch the culprits.

Africa Restoration Alliance (ARA) PR councillor Grant Classen asked what was in place to protect whistleblowers.

“The nature of our community is unfortunate that many of them have destructive ways.

“Vandalism is not going to stop, there is nothing we can put in place at this moment. It is not a sub-council problem. It has become a national government problem. I’m proposing that there should be a budget available for security in volatile areas.

"We cannot tolerate officials being attacked,“ he said.

Tafelsig councillor Norman Adonis, for Ward 92, said gangsters were sabotaging the substations.

He said the community has taken ownership of sub-stations and that they went out to distribute job seeker forms to address unemployment and redirect youth but they do not take up the opportunity.

Mr Adonis said many times he escorted officials into the area and that the department could not be blamed all of the time.

Mr Plaatjies said there have been several complaints of theft and vandalism in Ward 76.

“We can never justify how desperate people are for the theft of cables in the community. Then we’ll be making a moral code error to justify theft affecting the whole community,” he said.

The City’s media department said that areas across the metro have experienced an increase of electricity infrastructure theft and vandalism.

“Hotspot areas are being monitored where resources allow. We encourage residents to report incidents to the City and the South African Police Service. The South African Police Service remains the lead authority in crime prevention,” read their reply.

To report damage to municipal electrical infrastructure SMS 31220; email power@capetown.gov.za; and to make anonymous tip-offs call 112 from a cellphone (toll free) and 107 from a landline or 021 480 7700 for emergencies.