UPDATE: More delays on KwaDukuza streetlights

Areas in KwaDukuza will remain dark as the municipality scrambles to find a way to fix broken street lights.

Currently, the municipality does not have the manpower or the supplies to maintain more than 5000 streetlights in the district.

According to KDM media liaison Sipho Mkhize, the municipality is currently reviewing their contract with a company that was appointed in December to fix faulty street lights in the Ballito and Salt Rock area.

While they struggle with that, a second contact for the supply of materials had to be cancelled after the municipality was reported for unfair tender practices.

Speaking about the issue in KwaDukuza council last week, newly-appointed KDM electrical director of operations Duma Mhaule said the process came to a halt after one of their suppliers took them to task.

“There was a complaint from one of the suppliers to the national treasury that the specifications of the tender were in favour of a particular supplier. We need to review this specification and then re-advertise the contract.”

Also read: Salt Rock Neighbourhood Watch tackles street light repairs

Last year, the Ballito Neighbourhood Watch recorded that more than 40 percent of the streetlights in the town had not been working.

Street lights were replaced in priority areas like the Ballito promenade before the festive season but other areas in KwaDukuza have also been kept in darkness for years.

Mhaule told council that temporary measures were in place and that the electrical department planned to fix about 200 streetlights during February.

“Some of our other issues related to a shortage of internal staff which we will deal with before the end of this financial year. For now, we have placed an order for specific streetlights and we will work with councillors to prioritise where they need to go. We are hoping that the lights will all be working in time for elections.”

Councillors, however, were not happy with the news and an independent ward 2 councillor Commie Nhleko called the electrical department’s executive director Sibusiso Jali incompetent.

“I have had several consultations with electrical engineering including the ED. When we did not have an ED in that department, things were happening but now that we do have Mr. Jali there, things are not happening. I think political heads must intervene in that department or they will be doomed to die.”

ANC councillor van Whye accused the municipality of constantly sidelining some areas for years. “From as far back as 2008, some streets have been dark and to date, nothing has been done to address these concerns.”

DA ward 22 councillor Malcolm Hubner said that 437 lights in Salt Rock were not working.

“I have written six emails to this department and to date not one email was replied to. If that’s what my ward is looking like, what are the other 29 wards looking like?

“A few days back, Mr. Jali’s wife (of executive director Jali) sat in front of my desk and complained that the street lights in front of her house are not working. And that is how you know you have a problem.”

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