Crime and lack of preventative maintenance to blame for no lights
“The infrastructure has simply not been maintained for at least 26 years that I’m aware of and I’ve been a councillor for the past 15 years,” McDonald said.
Local residents are worried that it is only a question of time before there is a fatal accident on the Rooihuiskraal bridge in Centurion because of a lack of functioning streetlights at the bridge.
Especially early in the mornings when it is still dark and many pedestrians and recyclers use that road, they say.
“It is unfortunately not just a matter of changing globes so residents could have light,” said ward 64 councillor Casper McDonald.
McDonald said the streetlights are out of order because the entire electrical line in that area is faulty.
“That is mainly due to a lack of preventative maintenance on the line and all its electrical components over years on the one hand, but also because of cable theft on the other hand.”
“When cables get stolen, the line has to be fixed by joining new pieces of cable with the existing line.”
He said that resulted in an electrical line made up of a lot of weak connections “which causes spikes and explosions on the line”.
McDonald said the cables are, however, not always to blame because there are also cases of faults on poles causing outages. Or issues at power supply points and sub-stations. And that is where the lack of preventative maintenance takes its toll.
He said preventative maintenance should be done every year on a regular basis.
“This is the case not only in respect of residents’ complaints about streetlights but also of the many complaints about power outages and potholes.
“I’ve been living here for 26 years,” McDonald said, “and I have never seen the municipality replacing poles or digging up electrical cables or water pipes to have it replaced with new ones.
“Water pipes burst from old age. In some areas asbestos pipes are still being used, which is not even legal anymore.”
“The infrastructure has simply not been maintained for at least 26 years that I’m aware of and I’ve been a councillor for the past 15 years,” McDonald said.
“That is why everything is on the verge of collapse. A lot of residents’ complaints about poor service delivery stems from that. Where do people think potholes come from?”
He said the municipality has for many years “failed to chip and seal tar roads”.
“If they are not sealed properly, water will start eroding it from every crack in it. If a pothole is not repaired and sealed properly, it will only grow bigger and bigger.
“Preventative maintenance is simply not an item to be found on any budget. No money gets allocated to that, although the municipality claim that they do maintenance.
“Sometimes residents are merely ignorant, I recently received complaints about long grass not being cut in my ward. But the entire ward is comprised of wetlands. By law, we are not allowed to cut wetlands, although Nature Conservation only trims the sides from time to time.”
McDonald said the entire project concerning the said bridge, also entailed the building of two connection roads. That was the provincial department’s responsibility, which never materialised.
“I wrote submissions in this respect about seven years ago. As part of the provincial upgrading of the N14 starting at Lanseria Airport, I requested that the department at least finish the on-ramp for us.”
McDonald said the department has already started with the project at Diepsloot and progressed up to Brakfontein intersection.
“At least that will alleviate a lot of traffic because residents currently use Rooihuiskraal Street to reach the Old Johannesburg Road R101. By taking the proposed on-ramp it will enable residents to use the N14 to reach the city, Johannesburg and Polokwane.
“It would cost the municipality around R8-billion to upgrade the entire electrical system. I foresee it will take a couple of years to get it on par,” McDonald said.
Metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said, “Region 4 faces the challenge of theft of conductors at that bridge.
“The service conductor was stolen and the city’s team of technicians replaced it not long ago with two core conductors.
“Currently, the team is working on the system and waiting for spares,” Mashigo concluded.
Do you have more information about the story?
Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
