Municipality has finally seen the light

THE CITY of Joburg has announced that the City Power board has adopted a plan that will see a highly-dedicated team take to the streets to embark on a street light maintenance campaign throughout the city.

With some 270 000 street lights across Joburg, our streets are being left in the dark too often, and the turn-around time for repairs is too slow, according to Nico de Jager, the member of the mayoral committee for environment and infrastructure services.

“As such, in an effort to enhance the security of our residents and improve the turn-around time of repairs, I have asked City Power to prioritise the maintenance of this critical infrastructure.”

The new teams have been capacitated through the funds made available in the capital expenditure budget, which allows for the installation of new lights, as well as the repair of existing lights.

“Through the allocation of R195 million that was made available in the maintenance budget for the 2017/18 financial year we will ensure that street lights, especially those around main transport routes, will be fixed faster and that the correct procedures are followed to ensure that repairs last longer.

“We also acknowledge that a significant portion of damaged street lights, especially in our low-income, high-density areas throughout the city, are the result of illegal power connections and vandalism.”

City Power will be working closely with the department of public safety and the Joburg metro police department (JMPD) to police the problem and prevent such damage in the future.

“For this reason I have also committed myself to conduct additional political oversight visits to ensure that the plan is implemented timeously and that the fixing of street lights is realistic,” De Jager added.

Residents are urged to assist with this campaign by reporting broken street lights to City Power at 011 375 5555, as well as any illegal tampering with street lights to the JMPD on 011 375 5911.