Finally there is light

The streetlights in Danville are finally working after being out of order for the past nine months.

Residents are pleased that the lights are repaired but still questions why it took the Tshwane metro so long to repair the streetlights.

“The workers from the electricity department were here last week Thursday to repair the lights. The problem is that the lights get fixed and work for an hour at night then they do not work anymore,” resident Koos Mathys said.

He said due to the streetlights not working for so long there have been house break-ins and the church in their street has also been broken into a couple of times.

Another resident from Du Rand Street, Mali Mokoena, said when the streetlights were out of order criminals broke into residents’ yards and stole the copper taps outside.

“The streets were very dark when the lights were off. The little lights that we have outside did not show much. Now the lights are repaired and still working. We do not know what the other metro workers did not do right previously.”

There are elderly people living in the street and they felt unsafe as people were mugged at the park.

Du Rand and Duvenhage streets’ residents drew up a petition in the past to resolve the matter. The residents also pointed out that it is not only the two streets’ lights not working but almost the whole of their side’s streetlights that are not working.

“In some streets the streetlights work during the day and not at night. We pay our rates and taxes and we expect everything to be seen to in time after we reported it,” Mathys said.

Residents had to take their own safety precautions to make sure there is a bit of light in their yard to keep criminals away.

“I had to install this light in the front of my house just to have some light,” Mathys indicated.

All residents wanted was to find out why the metro took months to repair the streetlights but the metro failed to respond to enquiries sent to them before print.