Security camera splurge

I READ in a weekend newspaper that the ANC’s Xolani Sotashe claimed the city council allegedly spent R355 000 on security cameras at Patricia de Lille’s private residence.

I live in a Kenilworth street which has been plagued by burglaries, house robberies and petty but costly pilfering from houses for years and I have had personal experience of those crimes.

Due to these incidents, I have been in protracted, mostly one-sided correspondence with city council officials since November.

I wrote to them about the ever-increasing criminal activities in my street and asked them to install monitored municipal security cameras. After a long period of silence, I was finally advised that there was “no infrastructure” available.

As a result, I recently privately installed four security cameras around my house at a total cost of about R6 500, inclusive of labour, hardware and software and VAT, which amounts to about R1 625 per camera.

If Mr Sotashe’s claim that the council spent R355 000 on security cameras at Ms De Lille’s private residence is correct, one can make a simple calculation by dividing my modest spend of R1 625 per camera into the alleged amount of R355 000 and arriving at 218 cameras at her private house. “Let them eat cake”… etc. A J HANEKOM Kenilworth

PICTURE: BHEKI RADEBE/ANA ‘MILKING TAXPAYERS’: The writer says he couldn’t get the council to put up one security camera in their crime-ridden street and questions the R355 000 splashed on cameras for Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille’s house.