‘Enhanced security’ envisaged to protect city infrastructure
“The Atteridgeville depot has been vandalized and burnt down. Thus, there are no offices and workplace facilities to operate from.”
Finalisation of a Tshwane metro tender focusing on the prevention of vandalism and theft to infrastructure through technology was underway.
Tshwane mayor Randall Williams said that the tender would see the use of security technology such as alarms and other deterrents that could be installed at infrastructure sites such as substations and reservoirs to prevent vandalism and theft.
“Part of our strategic thinking is deploying better security technologies that detect criminal actions before they severely cause disruption and allow us time to respond and ideally arrest the offenders.”
He said the metro already had a dedicated cable theft unit that proactively policed and patrolled areas where cable theft was dominant.
Williams said the city also had a dedicated asset protection unit which was driven out of the city manager’s office to ensure that appropriate guards, were based at key sites.
“This unit plays a critical role in protecting major infrastructure.”
Williams said that vandalism and theft were the cause to significant costs to the municipality and effectively drained the funds meant for other areas of core service delivery.
“They also have an economic impact as electricity outages are a result of cable theft, which can also harm businesses or disrupt manufacturing operations.”
Since 2018/19, the Tshwane metro had spent thousands to repair vandalised infrastructure.
Spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said that in June 2020, the Brazzaville community damaged the metro’s vehicles resulting in damage that cost R4 500 to repair, while R5 256 was used to repair water meters in the Pretoria CBD in 2020/21.
“The damaged water meters repaired by regional personnel were 15mm water meter boxes (low cost). The large diameter water meters (high cost) were repaired by the metering section in the infrastructure planning and implementation division in the utility services department,” said Mashigo.
He said the mini-sub at Prince’s park electricity depot was also vandalised, with four circuit-breakers damaged, costing the city an estimated R80 000.
“Atteridgeville depot has been vandalised and burnt down. Thus, there are no offices and workplace facilities to operate from.”
Mashigo said in 2019, the Jeffsville community depot was burnt and damaged, with fixing costs amounting to R2-million, while damaged vehicles also amounted to R200 000.
“There were four vehicles that were torched in Mabopane during protests in 2018/2019.”
Mashigo said the metro did not always know who the responsible parties were, which made it impossible to recover costs.
“However, if the parties causing the damage are officials, then the relevant labour process with the unions would be the route that the city embarks on.”
Williams further said Tshwane was tracking security incidents on a weekly basis at the service delivery war room.
“Through this platform, we can formulate inter-departmental responses, more importantly, we can use data to assess which areas and infrastructure are targeted the most and then assist our policing towards these locations. This gives us a higher chance of success of catching criminals in the act.”
He said the metro was continuously inspecting the work done by contractors employed to provide services.
“Where they provide unacceptable work, their payment is withheld or in extreme cases, they are blacklisted and prevented from doing work in the metro.”
“A big challenge also relates to contractors outside of the city who damage infrastructure. For example, the installation of internet fibre lines can often result in contractors piercing a water pipe or electricity connection which then the metro must then respond to.”
Williams said the metro appealed to communities to ensure that they reported crime and to stop damage to property, as costs needed to repair this infrastructure could be better utilised in service delivery projects.
“Critically, we need residents to support us in reporting suspicious activity.”
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