Cable thieves plunge M7 into darkness
Cable thieves have sawn down rows of streetlights along the M7 in Rossburgh as well as in nearby Vusi Mzimela Road plunging the routes into darkness.
|||Cable thieves have sawn down rows of streetlights along the M7 in Rossburgh as well as in nearby Vusi Mzimela (Bellair) Road plunging the routes into darkness.
They have all been felled with a clean cut at knee height and their wiring and bulbs removed.
The Independent on Saturday counted 27 such “stumps” – none without an adjacent pole also on the ground – while locals have spoken of about 40 having fallen.
“There are some you cannot see because they’re in the bush,” said local DA councillor Billie Prinsloo. She and other locals said they had been down “for months”.
Streetlights and their poles cost the eThekwini Municipality about R15 000 each to replace, according to statistics issued last year.
Asked for comment about the felled streetlight poles on Thursday night, the municipality said on Friday morning it would respond “when we have collated the information”.
By the time of publication, no response had been forthcoming.
Prinsloo pointed out that the municipality had filled these poles with cement up to a certain height.
“The criminals have cut them in exactly the right places,” she said.
This prompted her to question how they would know exactly where the cement ended.
The resulting dark stretch of the M7 beside Rossburgh High School has given garage shop manager Jermaine David a crime headache. This week his Southway Convenience Centre was robbed.
“Three armed guys came in, took things and went out into the dark.”
He said there had been similar incidents in January and December, adding that the crime spike coincided with the felling of the lamp posts.
“The last time we ever had such crime was seven or eight years ago.”
In Vusi Mzimela Road, felled street light poles have plunged a section of the road to Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital into darkness.
The Department of Health was not forthcoming about whether operation at the hospital had been affected.
Prinsloo said the municipality needed to employ a “cable theft squad” and rather install lights powered by solar energy, “like they do in Cape Town”.
“Otherwise, when they are fixed, it happens all over again.”
She also called for the crime of destroying such essential service infrastructure to be punishable as sabotage rather than theft, making it possible for culprits to be dealt with more harshly.
“I put that notice of motion forward but it was not carried out,” Prinsloo said.
“It’s also about the city having such weak political leadership and nobody is going to stand up and be firm about it because it is an election year.
Independent on Saturday