Cape Town - The City of Cape Town’s energy department has spent more than R7.3 million to repair electricity theft and vandalism damage, with R4.2m of this on street lights alone.
Between April and June this year the City said area south, which includes Mitchells Plain, was the hardest hit.
Just last week, the City noted that 12000 prepaid electricity meters had been tampered with, which was largely due to soaring energy costs.
Between July 31 and August 13, energy teams attended to 5810 street light-related requests across the metro, bringing the total attended to in a month to more than 13210.
A total of more than 245 000 street lights in total were serviced.
Mayco member for energy, Xanthea Limberg, said crime increased when street lights were stolen.
“I have been inspecting sites where we are repairing damaged electrical infrastructure and street lights in particular across the metro to evaluate the interventions the City has put in place to tackle the scourge of theft and vandalism,” she said.
“The latest data shows a total of 242 theft and vandalism incidents reported with estimated costs of repairs amounting to R7.3m.
“Theft and vandalism impacting street lights comprises majority of the repair costs of R4.2m as public lighting is an easy target due to easy access for criminals damaging the infrastructure to perform illegal activities.”
She said that area south, which includes Mitchells Plain, recorded 153 or 70% of the total incidents.
“Due to this crisis situation many interventions are being driven both to enable energy teams to fix street lights faster but also to reduce the risks of the crisis-levels of theft and vandalism,” she stated.
Eskom said in the latest incident in the Western Cape, thieves targeted staff in Uitsig.
“Eskom’s infrastructure was looted in Uitsig on August 22.
‘The unfortunate incident did not only traumatise Eskom employees but caused a delay in restoring electricity to the affected communities,” the utility said.
The staff had been called out to repair cables to the greater Uitsig area when they were targeted by thieves, who stole cables and equipment.
Earlier this month, Eskom revealed that they recorded a R47 billion hit annually due to vandalism and theft.
Natasha Gertse, founder of #Electricity Tariffs Must Fall, said the damage to infrastructure impacted everyone.
“They (the criminals) will resort to tampering (electricity meters) because the electricity is not affordable, even though it’s a need,” she said.
“The fact that it’s a need, it should be more affordable. But because they’re (Eskom and municipalities) are more focused on revenue than the suffering of our people, they will sit with more expenditure,” Gertse lamented.
“Things will only improve once the welfare of our citizens are seen too… The City receives taxes for the welfare of citizens but the welfare of these already suffering citizens is being overlooked,” she said.
Cape Argus